Promoting Transparency: Explicating the Role of Philosophy in Design and Application of Quality Criteria in Mixed Research

• In Event: Ensuring Quality in Mixed-Methods Research in Higher Education: From Theory to Praxis

Abstract

The interconnections underpinning a researcher's paradigmatic assumptions, value positions, epistemological stances, and ontological commitments about what constitutes credible mixed methodology for a study and what quality criteria should be in place to legitimate the researcher's conclusions and inferences have prompted considerable discussion among mixed researchers from multiple academic disciplines. However, less attention has been directed toward explicating how these interconnections impact the decisions and actions relevant to designing and implementing quality criteria. The goal of this presentation is, therefore, to demonstrate these interconnections by presenting examples of how a researcher's philosophical orientation should translate into thoughtful decisions and actions in a mixed inquiry. First, a discussion of the characteristics of evidence-based practice (EBP) will be presented and the challenges unique to mixed research that impact EBP will be outlined. Second, an overview of the Holistic and Synergistic Legitimation Process (Collins, Onwuegbuzie, & Johnson, in press) will be presented, whereby researchers' (and stakeholders’) values and philosophical clarity concerning philosophical assumptions, stances, and beliefs are made relevant throughout the conduct, dissemination, and utilization of a mixed research study. Third, we show how to apply the recently developed metaparadigm known as dialectical pluralism (Johnson, 2011) to the Holistic and Synergistic Legitimation Process. Dialectical pluralism requires researchers thoughtfully to consider and to interrelate divergent concepts and values that constitute the perspectives and values of multiple paradigms and communities of practice that are relevant to a particular study, successfully to experience and to capitalize on the tensions that such a dynamic synthesis can produce, and to facilitate thoughtful dissemination and utilization of findings to achieve social betterment (Johnson, 2011). This metaparadigm provides justification and specific strategies for incorporating and linking multiple paradigmatic features and quality criteria when instantiating and legitimating a mixed research study. We hope many researchers will find the process we explain in our paper to be useful for connecting philosophy, theory, and practice and underscore how each research study can be legitimated by working dialectically with multiple ideas and values throughout a study and at the study's conclusion.

Collins, K. M. T., R. B. Johnson,& Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2011). Securing a place at the table: Introducing legitimation criteria for the conduct of ‎mixed research. American Behavioral Scientist. [Special issue].
Johnson, R. B. (2011). Dialectical pluralism: A metaparadigm to help us hear and 'combine" our valued differences. In S. J. Hesse-Biber (Chair), Addressing the Credibility of Evidence in Mixed Methods Research: Questions, Issues and Research Strategies. Plenary conducted at the meeting of Seventh International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Authors

• Kathleen M.T Collins, University of Arkansas

• Burke Johnson, University of South Alabama

• Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie, Sam Houston State University