Learning Activity 7.1

Creswell sees quantitative and qualitative methods as being combined to make an even stronger case and overview. I watched two videos by him and in one he gave an incredibly strong example of when he merged his personal story and numerical data to show a more comprehensive view of the happening in the Boston bombings (Creswell, 2013). While there were many other examples given throughout both videos it was clear that John prefers combined methods. The textbook, on the other hand, seems to be a bit more cautious in the approach to combining methods, “Researchers need to have a good reason for choosing to combine quantitative and qualitative research” (Plan Clark Creswell, 2015, pg. 385). As we have learned, qualitative and quantitative research are two different areas and so perhaps in the spirit of ‘less is more’ it could be better in some cases to keep them separate.

Mixed methods has had a hand in advancing leadership research in that it naturally gives people more options. I found the following quote quite informative on the subject:

“Leadership research has a long history of a quantitative approach, and it remains the most commonly used approach among leadership researchers. Researchers in a variety of fields have been applying mixed methods designs to their research as a way to advance theory”
(Stentz, Plano Clark, & Matkin, 2012, pg. 1173).

In other words, it seems that mixed methods research hasn’t always been so well-known and obvious. It would be interesting to know who was the first to break the trend of always keeping qualitative and quantitative separate.

I would like to end with the following question: Is there such a notion as too much information when it comes to research? The textbook already outlines the fact that combining the two isn’t always a good idea because both quantitative and qualitative methods have special considerations (Plano Clark & Creswell, 2015, p. 385). Personally, I don’t think so. However, it would be interesting to see the reasoning someone has behind a yes to this question.

Source:

Creswell, J. (Director). (2013, February 19). What is mixed methods research [Video file]. Retrieved April 17, 2018, from http://johnwcreswell.com/videos/

Plano Clark, V. L., & Creswell, J. W. (2015). Understanding Research (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Stentz, J. E., Clark, V. L., & Matkin, G. S. (2012). Applying mixed methods to leadership research: A review of current practices. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(6), 1173-1183. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2012.10.001