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Abstract. Health care research includes many studies that combine quantitative and qualitative methods. In this paper, we revisit the quantitative-qualitative debate and review the arguments for and against using mixed-methods. In addition, we discuss the implications stemming from our view, that the paradigms upon which the methods are based have a different view of reality and therefore a different view of the phenomenon under study. Because the two paradigms do not study the same phenomena, quantitative and qualitative methods cannot be combined for cross-validation or triangulation purposes. However, they can be combined for complementary purposes. Future standards for mixed-methods research should clearly reflect this recommendation.

In most college impact models, student and institutional characteristics have substantial effects on student learning (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). The purpose of this study was to discover the impact of out-of-class experiences on outcomes of college attendance considered important by students. From interviews with 149 seniors at 12 colleges and universities, 14 categories of learning and personal development were distilled. These categories subsequent-ly were reduced to five outcome domains: Personal Competence, Cognitive Complexity, Knowledge and Academic Skills, Practical Competence, and Al-truism and Estheticism. Contrary to the literature on college impact, student background characteristics were not related to differences in outcomes; how-ever, students attending small, private colleges with liberal arts missions more frequently reported changes in Cognitive Complexity, Knowledge and Academic

This paper is focused on validity in mixed methods research or what we refer to more broadly as mixed research. However, to understand the validity issue (i.e., quality) in mixed research, a brief review of some related discussions in quantitative and qualitative research will be helpful for orientation. Because these issues have been discussed elsewhere in great detail, we provide only brief summaries of those literatures, but first we want to make a few introductory comments about our general approach to research validity or quality. We try to take a "middle of the road" position, seeing some truth and insight to be gained from multiple perspectives. Our approach is only one among many, and we recommend that readers examine additional perspectives as more work is carried out in this emerging area in mixed methods research as well as in the more traditional areas of qualitative and quantitative research quality. The "validity" issue, at least as we use the term, is not about singular truths, and it certainly is not limited to quantitative measurement; rather, by validity we mean that a research study, its parts, the conclusions drawn, and the applications based on it can be of high or low quality, or somewhere in between. Research needs to be defensible to the research and practice communities for whom research is produced and used. The arbiters of research quality will be the research stakeholders, which means that the quality or validity issue can have subjective, intersubjective, and objective components and influences. At the same time, research is something about which we can "rationally" speak, and usually, after considering our external and our internal or epistemic standards, we can meaningfully assert that some research is of higher quality for certain purposes than is other research We aim our sense of justification at the research community that sees many advantages to sometimes using both qualitative and quantitative research in their single or highly related sets of research studies. One of the exciting results of much mixed research is that in a single study practical questions can be addressed, different perspectives can be examined, and if well documented, practitioners can obtain some sense of what might be useful in their local situations. We do not want to oversell mixed research, however; the evidence will be in the results. If mixed research produces useful results over time, as well as useful theory, then progress will have been made. We agree with Kurt Lewin's statement that "There is nothing so practical as a good theory" (Lewin, 1952, p. 169), and we hope that all researchers, including mixed researchers, will attempt to produce good theories and other research works. Validity in Quantitative Research In quantitative research, discussions of "validity" have been common and the importance of validity has been long accepted, and this is well documented in the literature. Building on the seminal works of Campbell and Stanley Another very important work in validity in quantitative research is found in Shadish, Validity in Qualitative Research In the qualitative research paradigm, a primary focus is for researchers to capture authentically the lived experiences of people. As noted by 2 Denzin and Lincoln (2005) also argue for "a serious rethinking of such terms as validity, generalizability, and reliability, terms already retheorized in postpositivist…, constructivist-naturalistic…, feminist…, interpretive…, poststructural…, and critical…discourses. This problem asks, 'How are qualitative studies to be evaluated in the contemporary, poststructural moment? '" (pp. 19-20). 3, 4 Part of their solution to the "validity issue" has been to reconceptualize traditional quantitative validity concepts and to use labels that are more acceptable to qualitative researchers Another useful classification for validity in qualitative research was provided by

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This study deals with the educational effectiveness of field trips. The main purpose was to obtain insight concerning factors that might influence the ability of students to learn during a scientific field trip in a natural environment. The research was conducted in the context of a I-day geologic field trip by 296 students in Grades 9 through I 1 in high schools in Israel. The study combined qualitative and quantitative research methods. Data were collected from three different sources (student, teacher, and outside observer) in three stages (before, after, and during the field trip). Using observations and questionnaires we investi-gated: a) the nature of student learning during the field trip, b) student attitudes toward the field trip, and c) changes in student knowledge and attitudes after the field trip. Our findings suggest that the educational effectiveness of a field trip is controlled by two major factors: the field trip quality and the “Novelty space” (or Familiarity Index). The educational quality of a field trip is determined by its structure, learning materials, and teaching method, and the ability to direct learning to a concrete interaction with the environment. The novelty space consists of three prefield variables: cognitive, psychological, and geo-graphic. The learning performance of students whose “Novelty Space ” was reduced before the field trip was significantly higher than that of students whose “Novelty Space ” had not been so reduced. Thus, the

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Mixed methods research combines theoretical and/or technical aspects of quantitative and qualitative research within a particular study. This paper traces the historical development of mixed methods research, and delineates current post-positivist and constructivist paradigmatic perspectives. We describe the two major positions of mixed method advocates: the dialectic and the pragmatic. We identify five purposes for mixing methods and eight types of mixed method studies. Grounded in mixed method inquiry literature, the authors examine the benefits and tenets of mixed methods research, analyze how it is currently being reported in three studies published in the Information Technology, Learning, & Performance Journal, and offer specific recommendations for clarifying written descriptions of methods used to collect and interpret data. We draw positive implications for the organizational systems field for clearly writing about mixed research methods in publications.

Over the last several decades, positivist-behaviorist apyroaches to social and educational researc '~~n the decline, whereas int~rpretivist ap, pd:oaches have been on the rise. As a result of this "interpretive t___urn__z " the old debate betwee_frrpositivism and inter-preti~ism (and central to the qua---~ntitative-qualitative debate) has diminished in intensitu only to be replacedby anew debate within ra te--Th is article characterizes the new debate tn terms o'fpos~---~ists-- who would abandon_the~ma_~d-pato.r_y_proj-ect ~ ~ ~ a~d-- versus ~a~an&formo_tJo isrf!s~--wh"~o~~-p~oject and endeavor to see it through. Among the conclusions advanced is that the d t ~ between these two general perspectives tend to be over._..____draww~n particularly when philosophical avowals are measured against the require-ments of practice. Educat iona l Researcher, Vol. 27, No. 8, pp. 13-20

For institutional researchers, the choice to use a quantitative or qualitative approach to research is dictated by time, money, resources, and staff. Frequently, the choice to use one or the other approach is made at the method level. Choices made at this level generally have rigor, but ignore the underlying philosophical assumptions truc-turing beliefs about methodology, knowledge, and reality. When choosing a method, institutional researchers also choose what they believe to be knowledge, reality, and the correct method to measure both. The purpose of this paper is to clarify and explore the assumptions underlying quantitative and qualitative research. The rea-son for highlighting the assumptions is to increase the general level of understanding and appreciation of epistemological issues in institutional research. Articulation of these assumptions hould foster greater awareness of the appropriateness of differ-ent kinds of knowledge for different purposes.