CIS Seminar: "Are Mixed Methods Coherent?" (1/22/2008)

In this week's Communication and Information Sciences seminar (POST 127, Thursday 4:30-5:30), we will discuss the potential relationship between what are sometimes called "qualitative" and "quantitative" research methods. We will not be directly concerned with pitting these against each other. Rather, we will ask whether and how they might productively be coordinated, as in hybrid or mixed methods research. Is it possible to combine qualitative and quantitative methods, or are they epistemologically incompatible?

Presently, Ricki Goldman (visiting researcher) and Ravi Vatrapu (CIS graduate) have agreed to serve as formal discussants. We have room for one more: contact me if interested. All members of the CIS and associated research communities are invited to participate in the discussion that will follow position statements. An online discussion will be projected in the room during the session: contact me for details.

Participants are asked to do some reading in advance.

Cresswell, J. W. (2003). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. -- pages 213-219 (and table p. 211).

-- Cresswell defines various types of mixed methods based on whether qualitative and quantitative methods are applied sequentially or concurrently, and whether one is subservient. Although Cresswell is an advocate, we can also use this except as a partial map of the space of mixed methods, a map that can be used whether or not it is advisable to venture in the territory.

Goldman, R., Crosby, M., Swan, K., & Shea, P. (2004). Introducing Quisitive Research: Expanding qualitative methods  for describing learning in ALN. In R. Starr Hiltz & R. Golman (Eds.), Learning Together Online: Research on Asynchronous Learning Networks (pp. 103-121). Mahwak, NJ: LEA.

-- Goldman et al. provide an overview of qualitative research, and then introduce the concept of "quisitive" research that dispenses with the prior duality by mixing methods freely as resources for involving all stakeholders in making sense of the meaning of the events being studied. To shorten the reading you might skip the section on ALN Methodologies.

Yanchar, S. C., & Williams, D. D. (2006). Reconsidering the compatibilty thesis and eclecticism: Five proposed guidelines for method use. Educational Researcher, 35(9), 3-12.

-- Yanchar et al. argue against methodological eclecticism. Methods come with theoretical commitments that may be incompatible with each other, leading to incoherence.

We will evaluate Yanchar's argument against the other two.
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An additional note to follow up on last week's seminar: one may go into further depth into Dr. Goldman's recent thinking on the "Perspectivity Framework" for video research in this paper (particularly beginning page 15):

Goldman, R. (2007). Video representations and the Perspectivity Framework: Epistemology, ethnography, evaluation and ethics. In R. Goldman, R. Pea, B. Barron & S. J. Derry (Eds.), Video Research in the Learning Sciences (pp. 3-37): Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

-- The Perspectivity Framework seeks nonhegemonic practices in which those framed by a video camera or other media are not "othered" but are rather participants in the quisitive process of meaning-making.