Chapter 3: Instrumentation in mixed methods studies

For mixed methods, the instrument section has to accommodate both qual and quant instruments. For the qualitative components, identify each instrument (observation sheet, interview protocol, focus group protocol, videotape, audiotape, artifacts, archival data, and other kinds of data collection instruments). State the source of each item and provide the permission for it in your appendix.

For published instruments, identify who developed it, where and with what populations it has been used. State why you think it is appropriate for your study, and any cultural or context issues that might be present with your population.

If you are designing qualitative instruments, explain how you developed them – what was the basis for them? How will you establish content validity?

Similarly, for the quantitative components, explain the background of each instrument. Discuss validity and reliability in previous studies and where it has been used before.

The next section is how you will recruit participants for each component (qual and quant). Go into detail on how and where the data will be collected for each component.

Finally, you need to lay out your data analysis plan for each component. For the quantitative aspects, indicate your hypotheses and what statistical tests will be used for each. How will you interpret the results? For the qualitative portion, indicate how you will code the transcripts and how you will handle discrepant cases. Then you need to integrate the two types of data and compare their results. How will you do this?

Next time we will give thanks. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu