Just wondering if anyone in the forum has used both qualitative and quantitative research methods in the social sciences. If yes, how did you find using both approaches in terms of data collection, analyses and write-up.

Hey, I am doing a mixed methods PhD and also teach on a short course. It's pretty interesting--part of my original proposal was to explore the use of mixed methods in my particular field (ie, is it a good idea, how does it work in practice). There's an OK conference in Cambridge each year on Mixed Methods, and some good books (I would recommend books by Tashakkori or John Creswell).
As I'm sure you are aware there are some inherent issues with mixing methods which have bearing on writing up and analysis. Are you just starting out? Do you have particular concerns?

I'm using mixed-methods in educational research for my phd. I'm combining quantitative questionnaires with focus-group interviews. I've only started piloting but I'm enjoying the mixture of methods from a practical point of view. The quantitative stuff has been useful in presentations while the qualitiative stuff has given some really interesting insights so far.

I'm using mixed methods in my med anthro dissertation, focus groups and in-depth interviews, along with some short surveys for all participants. I think its the way to go for acceptability in the med/scientific and also to provide some triangulation of data. The qualitative provides the richness, nuance and details that pure quant misses, while surveys will allow some correlational studies.

Thank you xConorx and Pup for your replies. I have been at the conference in Cambridge this year and found it very useful as well at the references you mention. I am concerned with write-up and bringing the results together in analyses. My thinking though at this stage is not to focus too much on the end result as see it as being one of different types of data sets each showing different perspectives.

However, even though I mention data collection write-up and analyses in my posting my main concern at the moment is timing and phases of each piece of research. I am at the stage of proposing this as a method and my plan is to be in the field for practically what would be the entire 2nd year. I was just going to post a question if this was an acceptable amount of time to be gathering data as I do understand that this is what the 2nd year entails anyway. While the third year would be data analyses and write-up in the ideal world!

thanks also doc2008, I am definitely interested to use this approach and hope my proposal is not too ambitious!

Are you trying to figure the timing of the methods? I always understood to first do the qualitative to inform the developement of the quantitative tool, which will, for most, be used on a larger scale target population. I am using mine concomitantly, in the interest of time and budget - but the surveys will be given to participants after the focus group or interview to minimize response bias. Eventually the results of this project will inform the development of a more detailed quantitative tool to be given a larger population (post-doc project)Depending on the details of your topic and the numbers you are gathering (and their accessibility), I would think a year is fine - I'm hoping to have mine completed, analyzed, written and defended by summer, talk about over ambitious!

Hey bulbs. What data collection methods are you using? And where will you be collecting it?
I am doing a 4-ys PhD so more time to play with, but fyi I completed my survey in a 12 month time frame n(data collecting in primary care, included a pilot and 3 ethics amendments) during which I also conducted pilot interviews. My interviews will all be done and analysed within a 6-month time frame. I am conducting a set of initial interviews (around 6), transcribing and conducting analyses within 2 months, then I’ll go on and do the remaining interviews in the following 4 months (the first block of interview analysis will inform changes to my interview guide so the process is iterative). This leaves me 1 year to write up and do any re-analysis of the survey data.
Ideally I would have nested my survey within sets of interviews, some prior to the survey to inform its design and some following to allow for deeper exploration of the survey data.

On a more general note about mixed methods…
One of my major concerns has been whether I am actually doing mixed method research, or just mulit-method? To be truly mixed the sum has to be greater than the parts, they have to feed into one another to allow you to reach conclusions that would not have been reached had you done each element in isolation. To try and achieve mix, I am selecting a few individuals and writing them up as case studies (so reflecting on survey and interview data together). Not sure how this is going to work in practice, but it seemed like an idea!

I am also wary of language issues—how will the thesis be written up? First or third person? What quality assessment do we use and what language (e.g., are terms such as reliability and generalisability appropriate for the qual section)?!

Hi there Pup. Planning to use a small number of focus groups to begin with, not sure where I will be based yet. Following this to collect data using telephone interviews with a number of validated measures. Maybe to follow a sample of at least 100 participants although his number as you can imagine is only a guess and will have to check this out. Hope to finish with a final stage of interviews around about 8-12. How long did your survey take to answer and how many participants did you survey?

PhD is funded for 3 years and am coming towards the end of my first year. I like you am thinking about if my proposal is truly mixed or just multi-method! I am wondering if a study is only considered to be mixed if the mix is done in analyses (also not sure how this is done) or if you use one stage to inform another could it also be defined as mixed method? In a sense you are mixing by using the data analysed to inform the next stage.

There is also the issue of weighting and whether qual quant is the dominant method. As you can see there are two qual stages in my proposal but perhaps the quant will end up having equal weight anyway. Other things to consider is the issue of expertise and where a person feels strongest methodologically.

I am not sure about the language but assume it has to be kept separate for the quan qual sections. Both are trying to find out different things. Good luck to us hey! Your research sounds interesting and great to have such a lot of stages. I think although a challenge it is great to get insight from both methods.

just a thought: what really differentiates qual and quant methods is often not that one is concerned with numbers the other with words, but the mindset of the researcher, the kind of question you are asking. like, often quant people will be "hypothesis testing" or "theory falsifying" whereas qual people will be "concept generating" or "theory generating". but this is not a must. i believe you can go about analysing quant data very similarly as qual data, in a "concept generating" manner. i don't have experience with this but perhaps it is also possible to go about analysing qual data with a quant mindset.
so maybe "mixed" as opposed to "both" methods would be just that. not "generating a theory/concept with qual, then testing it with quant, then refining it with qual" but "using quant and qual data both to generate concepts" and/or "quant and qual data to test/verify/falsify concepts/theories".

both is important to your research, they are complementary

I am hoping to use mixed methods in my thesis but am finding resistance to this from my supervisors. Has anyone else experienced this and if so do you have any tips on how to ''Sell'' it to them? Also I have been trawling for postgraduate courses in mixed methods in the UK..no luck but have found some in the States...have I missed something? Could anyone advise who offers postgraduate courses...or any course for that matter....