You have been randomly assigned to six groups of four students.
In your groups, you will consider and discuss abstracts of mixed methods studies.
Within each group, each person must select an abstract that no one else has selected from the list below. (The group spaces within eCourses/Canvas will facilitate discussions among your group members to pre-determine topic selection.)
Each person must then answer the following questions for the abstract they selected:
Identify the purpose of the study.
Based upon the abstract, what is the basic design (explanatory sequential, exploratory sequential, or convergent parallel) used for the study? Provide a rationale for your answer.
List one data source that is quantitative and one data source that is qualitative.
Respond to one person in your group by asking a clarifying question about the abstract they read.
Don’t forget to tell your peers which abstract you selected at the beginning of your post.
Abstracts
Plowright, D. (2014). To what extent do postgraduate students understand the principles of mixed methods in educational research? International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches, 7, 66-82.
In this article, the findings of a small-scale exploratory study investigating postgraduate students’ understandings of the use of mixed methods as a research strategy are reported. The empirical research was in two stages. Firstly, an on-line questionnaire survey was completed by 118 postgraduate students. That was followed by small-group, face-to-face discussions of 13 volunteers from the first stage. There is evidence from the findings. That there is some confusion and inconsistencies in the views of participants about the underlying methodological and philosophical principles associated with carrying out research in general and mixed methods research in particular. One source of the confusion might be the continuing use of the qualitative/quantitative distinction. It is recommended that a re-conceptualising of the research process is now needed, based on characteristics of integration and not just the mixing or combining of different approaches to research.
Crede, E., & Borrego, M. (2013). From ethnography to items: A mixed methods approach to developing a survey to examine graduate engineering student retention. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 7, 62-80.
As part of a […] mixed methods study, 9 months of ethnographically guided observations and interviews were used to develop a survey examining graduate engineering student retention. Findings from the ethnographic fieldwork yielded several themes, including international diversity, research group organization and climate, perception of value, and individual and group learning. In this article, the authors present the final themes from the ethnographic analysis and discuss how these data were configured into constructs and survey questions. The authors discuss the final survey, including validity and reliability analysis, and how constructs were developed to test hypotheses for future studies. The article concludes with implications for mixed methods researchers interested in using qualitative methods to create new surveys.
Coryn, C. L., Schröter, D. C., & McCowen, R. H. (2014). A mixed methods study of some of the factors associated with successful school strategies for native Hawaiian students in the State of Hawai’i. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 8, 377-395.
A […] mixed methods design, giving equal priority to both quantitative and qualitative methods, was used to investigate some of the factors that influence academic achievement of Native Hawaiian students in public schools in the state of Hawai’i. School-level instructional strategies, curricula, policies, and other variables that distinguish more successful schools from less successful schools were a primary focus of the study. Successful schools are those having collaborative school governance structures, linking decision structures to data, having a well-established and dedicated teaching force, having focused learning communities, having engaged leaders, share accountability for their students’ learning, are committed to continuous learning, and that provide effective supplementary and after-school programming.
Sorensen, P., Twidle, J., Childs, A., & Godwin, J. (2007). The use of the internet in science teaching: A longitudinal study of developments in use by student-teachers in England. International Journal of Science Education, 29(13), 1605-1627.
This paper reports on a longitudinal study of developments in use of the Internet by science student-teachers on Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) courses in five higher education institution-school partnerships in England. These are 1-year, full-time, teacher training courses for graduate scientists. The aim of the research was to examine changes in attitudes to, and use of, the Internet to support science teaching and the perceived challenges and barriers to practice in schools, against a background of high national expectations reflected in the qualification standards of the teacher education courses. The research has involved nearly 600 student-teachers, representing between 7% and 8% of those training on PGCE science courses in England, and has employed mixed methods, with questionnaires serving as the main basis for analysing trends, and focus groups and case studies used to gain deeper insight to the particular issues identified. The process has been an iterative one, with the outcomes of each year’s research being used to inform further research and course developments in the institutions involved. The findings indicate that attitudes and confidence in use of the Internet have improved over the period, with evidence of increased application directly in the classroom. However, in addition to some of the generic technological issues that may hinder developments in the use of Information and Communication Technology in schools, there are continuing concerns relating to limited pedagogical guidance and availability of good role models. The implications of this for developments in science teacher education programmes are discussed. (Contains 6 tables.) [Appended to this article is a copy of the “Areas Examined in the Questionnaire Relevant to the Research.”]
