Editorial: Best Practice Approaches for Mixed Methods Research in Psychological Science

摘要

Mixed methods research burst onto the scene around the beginning of the second millennium.After decades of intense dispute between those who preferred the qualitative perspective and theirquantitative counterparts—with both sides having grown deeply entrenched in their respectiveviews—a complementary approach promising the possibility of integration had finally beenproposed. By that time, however, the vast majority of researchers had committed to one stanceor the other; very few of us argued that the two approaches could be complementary.Since then, the number of publications, scientific meetings and other activities devoted to themixed methods approach has increased exponentially throughout the world. For us, there aretwo definitions specially relevant. Teddie and Tashakkori (2010) defined mixed methods researchas “research design using qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis techniques ineither parallel or sequential phases” (p. 11). And Johnson et al. (2007) say that “Mixed methodsresearch is the type of research in which a researcher or team of researchers combines elementsof qualitative and quantitative research approaches (e.g., use of qualitative and quantitativeviewpoints, data collection, analysis, inference techniques) for the broad purposes of breadth anddepth of understanding and corroboration” (p. 123). Moreover, Johnson et al. (2007) have listedand analyzed 19 definitions of mixed methods, and the authors that have worked on this topic asa part of a big community. The expansion of mixed methods in the scientific community has beenexpanding rapidly.