Provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-prints Repository
Research Design, as Independent of Methods
Stephen Gorard
School of Education
University of Birmingham
[email protected]
Objectives
Readers of this chapter should be in a better position to:
• Understand the process of research design
• Place their own and others work within a full cycle or programme of ongoing
research
• Understand why good research almost always involves a mixture of evidence
• Defend themselves from those who want numbers and text to be enemies
rather than allies
• Argue that good research is more ethical for society than poor research
Introduction
The term ‘mixed methods’ is generally used to refer to social science research that
combines evidence (or techniques or approaches) deemed both ‘quantitative’ and
‘qualitative’ in one study (e.g., Johnson and Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Creswell & Plano
Clark, 2007). However mixed methods work is described, the key element seems to
be this combination of quantitative and qualitative work at some level. It also appears
that social science researchers as a body, and commentators on mixed methods in
particular, view quantitative research as involving numbers, measurement and often
forms of analysis based on sampling theory. Qualitative research, on the other hand,
is viewed as almost anything not involving numbers, commonly text and discourse,
but also images, observations, recordings and, on rare occasions, smell and other