Qualitative and Mixed Methods
Qualitative foundations
Candidates should understand the major qualitative approaches: phenomenology (lived experience), grounded theory (theory generation), ethnography (culture and context), and case study (bounded system). Know that sampling in qualitative work is purposive rather than probabilistic, and that saturation is a judgment about informational redundancy, not a fixed number.
Rigor in qualitative research
Learn the concepts of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability as analogues of validity and reliability. Understand triangulation, member checking, audit trails, and reflexivity as strategies that strengthen trustworthiness. Know that coding may be inductive or deductive and that intercoder agreement supports but does not guarantee interpretive quality.
Mixed methods
Understand the rationale for combining methods: complementarity, explanation, expansion, and triangulation. Know the common designs: convergent parallel, explanatory sequential, exploratory sequential, and embedded. The design choice should follow the question and the timing of data collection. Learn how integration occurs at the level of design, methods, and interpretation.
Traps
- Judging qualitative studies by statistical generalizability, which they do not claim.
- Treating saturation as a universal sample-size rule.
- Assuming mixed methods is simply doing both strands without integration.
- Confusing reflexivity with bias confession; it is a disciplined analytic stance.
Worked rule of thumb
When appraising a qualitative or mixed study, ask: is the approach suited to the question, is sampling justified, are analytic steps transparent, and are the two strands genuinely integrated rather than reported side by side? Weak integration is the most common flaw.