Synthesizing Theoretical, Qualitative, and Quantitative Research: Metasynthesis as a Methodology for Education

• In Event: Responsibility...Even in Our Methods: Critical Theories as Methods for Social Justice Research

Abstract

Objectives
Reviews of research have increased in prominence (Jenson, Clark, Kircher, & Kristjansson, 2007). By adding together approaches, methods, findings, and claims from many studies, patterns that may have gone unnoticed can emerge, leading to innovations for a topic or phenomenon. Qualitative metasynthesis (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2006) has developed as a counterpart to quantitative meta-analysis (e.g., Brown & Lan, 2015). In this paper, we theorize, define, and demonstrate an expanded iteration of metasynthesis. Specifically, we seek a synthesis of research that is theoretical, and qualitative, and quantitative.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Qualitative research has case-bound idiographic validity, and an ability to reveal unexpected details that have not been understood through numbers (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2006). A crucial part of the process is identifying studies to include (Ludvigsen et al., 2016). Notably, important methods are intentionally excluded: mixed-methods, quantitative research, discourse analysis, hermeneutic analysis, or analytical essays.

Methods/Data Sources
Sandelowski and Barroso (2006) detail the analytic devices needed to create the synthesis, including a taxonomy of findings and sustained comparisons to interrogate the similarities and differences across studies (Spradley, 2016).
The work of our expanded metasynthesis can illuminate findings from the margins of previous studies, about topics that have not often been a focus. We use this to develop a Border Pedagogy for Teacher Preparation (BPTP). Our metasynthesis steps were designed to allow us to reveal a pedagogy which already existed:
1. Matching topic to method.
2. Searching the literature.
3. Building a typology.
4. Refining the phenomenon/topic.
5. Writing metasummaries.
6. Categorizing the findings.
7. Synthesizing in vivo and imported concepts.
8. Integrating findings.

Results/Significance
No methodological exclusions. Our metasynthesis includes methods that some methodologists would dismiss as not methods at all. Theoretical research has methods to produce knowledge, even when those methods are not made explicit in a paper (e.g., King, 2018).
A new metasynthesis. Border pedagogy’s role in teacher preparation was the topic of a number of articles and one edited volume (Flores, Sheets, & Clark, 2011). We used these to build a list of keywords, which grew as we added articles from databases. U.S. educational research integrating border pedagogy tends to originate near the geographic borderlands (Anzaldúa, 1987). Researchers apply culturally relevant pedagogy, critical pedagogy, hybrid identity, community, bilingualism, translanguaging, and transnationalism to teacher preparation across the region. We concentrated our search on populations of teacher preparation programs in places, where many or most prospective teachers, certification-program instructors, and schoolchildren are Latinx and bilingual. Over several months we read, discussed, added, and removed articles and books from the corpus. Works were summarized, analyzed, coded, categorized, and synthesized into a preliminary BPTP (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Emerging conceptualization for Border Pedagogy for Teacher Preparation.


Tie to Educational Responsibility and Curriculum Research
We imagine a more inclusive metasynthesis that may provide a view that is comprehensive of quantitative and qualitative, as well as of theoretical research on the topic. This can bring greater validity, recognizing and respecting more stakeholders and perspectives.

Authors

• Kip Austin Hinton, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

• Alcione N. Ostorga, University of Texas Rio Grande valley

• Christian Ellen Zuniga, University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley