Abstract
Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber (2010) Mixed Methods Research: Merging Theory with Practice. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. 242 pp. Reviewed by: Deborah Gioia University of Maryland, USA
Over recent years mixed methods research has gained an important place as a research design in social science research. The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) recently issued a resource to provide guidance about this research method titled, Best Practices for Mixed Methods Research in the Health Sciences (2011). In academic circles there is acknowledgement that utilizing a mixed methods approach in grant-writing and study applications should optimally create more depth of understanding of our particular research questions. If one method is useful then should not the combination of methods assure us that we have gleaned all the findings that are there to discover from our expert participants? Or are we just adding in the mixed methods notion to the study and by doing so watering down the understanding of the point of view of our participants?
In truth, there is much exploration and knowledge-building that needs to occur in order to thoughtfully explore what a mixed methods study can yield in our research projects and with our research teams. Popular research sentiment, which needs to be debunked, seems to regard a mixed methods strategy as a stronger hybrid alternative to either method alone (Shaw, 2009). As we learn by example and demonstration in this accessible text by Hesse-Biber, it is likely that by assuming a research position that applies a qualitative approach to a mixed method study, rather than simply adding a qualitative component to a quantitative study, one can achieve a credible and ethical study that will be more comprehensive than the results achieved by a singular method but only if it aligns with the research question. For researchers and students, this text is an invitation to ask ourselves some of the key questions that the author poses in each chapter and to try and stretch ourselves in new mixed or multi-methods directions if our question guides us in that way.
Mixed Methods Research: Merging Theory with Practice takes the reader through all phases of considering a research project. Hesse-Biber, a widely published Professor of Sociology and Director of Women’s Studies at Boston College, shares her own strong immersion in qualitative research on eating disorders and her standpoint as a feminist theorist and applies this to the mixed methods approach throughout the book. The book is divided into eight chapters each with a helpful glossary, related discussion questions, and suggested websites. Chapters 1 and 2 provide some perspectives on the promise, practice, and perils of mixed methods research and a thorough look at the development of a mixed methods question. Throughout these early chapters the reflections of four prominent qualitative researchers in different disciplines (Stephan Borgatti/Organization Research, Julianne Cheek/Nursing and health research, David Karp/Sociology and Andrea Nightingale/Geography) who were interviewed by Hesse-Biber are interspersed to enrich various topics. This is an effective and unique tool which serves to broaden the nature of mixed methods cross-discipline.
Chapters 4–6 provide three distinct approaches to mixed methods research: interpretive, feminist, and postmodern. With the initial groundwork completed in chapter 1 and 2, the reader is able to gain additional knowledge and application of how these three outlooks can distinctly shape the totality of one’s research experience – from shaping questions, to writing, to inclusion of participants in the research enterprise. These chapters will be particularly helpful to students/scholars who are trying to capture the basic feel of these approaches. Hesse-Biber invites us through chapter case studies and discussion questions to interrogate the essence of these frameworks against our research question(s) and our relative position to these questions in terms of history, politics, and the lineage of our discipline.
Chapter 7 titled Putting it Together provides ‘a research example that illustrates the genesis and analysis of a qualitative mixed methods research project’. This is not an actual project but is in Hesse-Biber’s interest area of male body image and she does have some interview data to imbed as the data display combined with core elements of the literature in this area to enrich the ‘project’. The chapter is divided into basic steps and boxed praxes for the reader which is a very generous use of the text to enable students and researchers an opportunity to walk their own projects through this thought exercise toward future implementation. Other mixed methods texts spend much more space in helping the new mixed methods research to think about design of their study. The Hesse-Biber text is unique for encouraging the reader to ask more detailed questions of their research problem, methods, design – in other words not to settle so quickly but to interact, examine, and play with these large ideas around mixed methods. Ultimately, if one does not feel that they have the requisite skills in place to pull off a mixed method project then it might not be wise to engage in this endeavor. On the other hand, Hesse-Biber is also telling us that these are skills worth developing and if you have honed your qualitative skills then the comprehensive approach put forth here is definitely worth trying for your own knowledge enrichment and also for the shared knowledge that will occur when your researcher standpoint, theory and methods are presented.
The essence and goals of this book have clearly been captured by the author and we leave the book feeling excited about the possibilities but somewhat daunted by the task of how we can effectively merge or integrate the qualitative and quantitative data. The concluding chapter takes us right back to the beginning of the text in an iterative way by asking us again to look at the many challenges of mixed methods research. Mixed Methods Research is not a handbook of issues, methods, and applications – there are many other texts to go to for that information; rather, it is a practical book that ethically guides us in our research considerations and most importantly for me provides a challenge to funnel one’s study with the qualitative question shaping the nature of the ‘mixing’.
Dr John Creswell and I have crossed paths on several occasions – in various workshops and through mutual colleagues. Creswell continues to be an important voice in the national and international mixed method research landscape including the contributions of his seminal works, Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research (2011) and Mixed Methods Reader (2008) with Plano Clark, and the Journal of Mixed Methods Research (JMMR). He speaks openly about what he views as the ‘interdisciplinary appeal’ of a mixed methods approach and in private conversations he seems perpetually curious about the quest for disciplinary specific mixed method knowledge and wonders whether there is such an animal. He has been asked to speak at social work conferences, nursing conferences, medical conferences, business schools etc even though he hails from the discipline of educational psychology. So what, if any, are the differences in a mixed methods approach for social work studies?
One of the issues that I think that each field might negotiate separately is interrogating the idea of where we think evidence comes from. While this may appear to be the same ontological discussion as where truth is housed, I think it is a shade different since social work knowledge privileges context of the person in the environment and of the community within the larger social structure as essential. It is often the relationship and the meaning of those relationships that are of interest to us. We are also interested in the dynamics of processes that cut across various sectors and programs. We are interested in the gestalt rather than the microscopic and as such we are likely to need multiple methods to explore these phenomena within a single study. So while this is a philosophical dilemma it is also a very practical one that implores us to think through all the elements that may be ‘mixed’ in any given study.
Conceptualizing any research problem as concentric circles of complexity invites us as social work researchers to peel back those layers and dig in with whatever methods might seem most useful or ethically acceptable to that particular layer of exploration. We also have to be prepared for the serendipitous finding to emerge and to be as flexible and competent with our research strategies as we are with our social work practice strategies. Social work researchers need to be concerned with honoring the diversity of participant views as well as the social justice issues that accompany our research project. Finally, we have to be explicit in telling others about our research methods in exploring those layers so that they can understand what it is that we have learned about these complex research questions and how it ultimately contributes to social work knowledge-building.
Deborah Padgett’s Qualitative Methods in Social Work Research (2008) is perhaps the most widely used text in social work classes on qualitative research methods at both the master’s and doctoral level. There is no commensurate text on mixed methods in social work research at this time although Dr Padgett has a new publication on Qualitative and Mixed Methods in Public Health (2011) which will undoubtedly provide an understanding of mixed methods research that will have some applicability to social work – especially in the health, mental health and international research domains. Even though Hesse-Biber is not writing exclusively for social work, this text could reach the status of Padgett’s text as a choice for mixed methods understanding in social work classrooms.
Reading the Hesse-Biber book has made me ever more conscious of how I position myself as a researcher for each project I undertake. The mixed method work that I have been doing lately has been to add a much-needed qualitative component to a larger quantitative design. While I certainly stand by the usefulness of this research, it has always left me wanting the qualitative focus to be the study’s heart and to have legitimate primacy and respect in the overall project. Qualitative as the centerpiece was something I was able to achieve in my first solo research effort as a doctoral student but it is easy to drift from that focus. Now that I teach doctoral level qualitative research methods in social work, I want to encourage students to deliberate over who they are as a researcher, a social worker, a person in society, etc and to develop their questions/methods according to these truths about themselves.
Unfortunately in these times of tight resources and huge competition for federal and foundation grant dollars, I have had to be more opportunistic and realistic in my career as a researcher. I initially thought that I would regularly write federal grants that would be funded on a fairly regular cycle. Of course there would be re-submissions and some disappointments but all in all I could have the kind of career that I saw researchers whom I worked with at UCLA and USC have in the 1980s and 1990s. I knew the amount of work that would be involved, but I was willing to undertake a number of months of concentrated effort to submit a worthy protocol. Then the climate shifted and I began to learn that the stakes were now so much higher and not only was it going to be nearly impossible to develop large grants as a solo project investigator but my research interest in vocational/career interventions for young adults with serious mental illness was going to take a back seat to the priority of grants seeking answers to genetic and biological questions about the disorder of schizophrenia. The window for psychosocial interventions being funded seemed to be closing just as the recovery movement for persons with serious mental illness living in the community was expanding. It felt both personally and professionally demoralizing.
My antidote to putting forth my own grant ideas was to seek opportunities in largely quantitative studies at the Veteran’s Administration in Baltimore. I have been quite happy to be engaged in these important efforts which consist of trying to understand from the veteran’s point of view whether the intervention they have participated in worked or did not work and why. It is not merely an evaluation of the study although that clearly is important, but it picks at and interrogates the – ‘what works well for whom’ issue of the intervention – which is critical. In these days of tailoring treatments it is hard to imagine not including a qualitative interview for the participants during or after the intervention.
Reading Hesse-Biber’s was like holding a mirror up to the recent studies I have done, and forced me to explore what it means to truly be a mixed method study. In my current studies I would have needed to be included on the design level with the other Principal Investigators of the study, and for each study question that was qualitative I would have wanted to initially link the goals and aims to a particular inductive approach that would provide the best chance of success in answering the question. We would also have discussed the overall research strategy and the data analysis plan in the beginning rather than operating in distinct silos of inquiry and then joining the results. I feel that the qualitative data is often relegated to the contextual and serves at the behest of the quantitative findings. Hesse-Biber calls for a revolution of sorts in thinking about data to be mixed with the qualitative findings taking the lead.
Critical thinkers like Hesse-Biber are able to generate provocative thinking in the reader. I went down my own reflective path while reading the book and I am certain that other readers will have a similar experience. The text sheds light on important issues and I can see its place alongside provocative qualitative and quantitative texts and articles as readings for a doctoral seminar. I hope to teach a PhD level mixed method course in the near future and would consider incorporating this text for the students. I did have the opportunity to hear Hesse-Biber speak at the 2010 International Mixed Methods Conference in Balitmore and did find her presentation style as creative and engaging as her written work.