#Explanatory mixed methods design how to

Can positivists or construstivists alone explore the entire reality of phenomenon under educational vicinity? Cannot we combine them into one to claim reality which could be more valid and reliable than single approach? These questions led me towards mixed method tradition to review its tradition. Here every educationist raises a question: Which method is appropriate to claim reality in the educational field? To find the answer of this question, I read several issues in the three communities and found that the answer is still unsolved and left for the future researcher? This gave a new insight into the lane of my mind to further inquire some questions in order to create arguments within the existing body of knowledge. Pragmatism on the other hand, embraces mixed method as the third research community in order to avoid either or view of positivism and constructivism. Based on their knowledge claim, positivists adopted quantitative method to state reality in the world whereas constructivists espouse qualitative method to construct the meaning of the phenomena under investigation. The positivist believes that the knowledge is universal and absolute whereas the later believe that there may be more than a fixed knowledge and it is fallible in the universe by non-positivism thought. Based on their knowledge claim they are constructivists, positivists and pragmatists respectively. In this context, Denzin and Lincoln, Geven, Tashakkori & Teddlie, Bryman, Ritchie and Lewis and Klenke state that there are three communities of researchers in the educational field: qualitative oriented methodologists, quantitative oriented methodologists and mixed methodologists. This confusing state has been created sometimes because of conflicting situations in paradigm. They often find difficulties to choose possible alternative methods to carry out their research work. The Educational researchers are still in dilemma to choose a particular methodological stand point to approach a research problem. This article is expected to be useful to novice researchers who are in quandary to adopt explanatory sequential mixed method as a research method and it also creates a roadmap in educational research indicating methodological possibilities for new knowledge claim. This article highlights on the growing interest of educational researchers on sequential mixed method design in order to collect and analyze data for legitimize knowledge claim. In this connection, this article aims at explaining the holistic ideas of mixed method design focusing particularly on philosophical premises, generating research questions, data collection and analysis process, potential ethical issues, quality of inference and teaching mixed methodology. In this confounding situation, this article guides them to fuse both qualitative and quantitative stand points to explore reality from another perspective which is known as pragmatic paradigm. Many novice educational researchers are in dilemma to adopt research design in order to explore reality through their research endeavor because of a tag of war on ontological epistemological and axiological perspectives among qualitative and quantitative researchers. The application of this mixed methods design assisted in investigating and exploring midwives' knowledge and confidence levels and provided clear insights for midwives needs and the effectiveness of healthy eating education on practice.Educational fraternity is moving towards research based practices to improve educational standards. Then, using meta-analysis to identify areas of convergence or discordance, which provided a more comprehensive overview and understanding of the key themes that linked midwives' knowledge and confidence. The sequential explanatory design was adopted to merge and mix different datasets to be collected and analysed. This example illustrates how integration can be achieved and emphasises how a weaving technique can be used, and findings are presented in a joint display and extreme case analysis. This paper describes and discusses an example of how integration was used to develop a better understanding of midwives’ knowledge and confidence after attending a healthy eating education workshop/webinar.

#Explanatory mixed methods design how to

How to integrate two research approaches and methodologies in a sequential explanatory mixed methods study, at the design, methods, interpretation and reporting levels will be explained. Limited application in midwifery research has identified a need for practical examples. Integration of mixed methods involves bringing together quantitative and qualitative approaches and methodologies.