Combining Methods

Yoshikawa, Weisner, Kalil, and Way (2008) argue that the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, also referred to as mixing or integrating methods, helps us understand the complexity of a phenomenon more completely. For example, when evaluating a programme in communication disorders research, combining methods answers questions such as what was offered (quantitative) and how the programme was received by the participants (qualitative). Therefore, combining methods further illuminates the topic of research. Combining methods can result in two separate strands for data collection and analyses or an integration of analyses across methods. Glogowska (2011, p. 256) suggests this keeps the methods “different at the paradigm level but…interlinked with each other, to produce a fuller account of a phenomenon”.