MIXED-METHODS APPROACH

Strengths and Limitations of the Mixed-Methods Approach

Strengths and Limitations of the Mixed-Methods Approach



Introduction

A review of quantitative and qualitative approaches to help identify their strengths and weaknesses and how their differing approaches can complement each other. In most cases, researchers fall into one of two camps - either by relying exclusively on "the objective of the survey questionnaires and statistical analysis and avoiding warm and fuzzy qualitative methods, or using only qualitative, quantitative approach in rejecting the decontextualizing human behavior. However, social marketing researchers recognize that each approach has positive attributes, and the combination of different methods may lead to get the best of both worlds research. Quantitative research uses methods adopted by the physical sciences that are designed to ensure objectivity, reliability and generalization. These techniques include the participants of the research capacities are selected at random from the population studied in a manner impartial, the standardized questionnaire or response they receive, and the statistical methods used to test hypotheses about the relationship between the predetermined specific variables. The researcher is seen as external to the research itself, and the results should be reproducible, no matter who performs the search.DiscussionThe strengths of quantitative approach are that its production methods are quantifiable, reliable data that are usually generalizable to some larger population. Quantitative measures are often more appropriate to conduct needs assessments or evaluations compare the results with the data. This approach breaks down when the phenomenon under study is difficult to measure or quantify. The biggest weakness of the quantitative approach is that decontextualizing human behavior in a way that removes the event from their real world context and ignores the effects of variables that were not included in the model.Qualitative research methodologies are designed to provide the researcher with the perspective of the target audience through ...