Hello again All,

Thanks for your interest in reading this and your time. I'd still be interested in your thoughts; however, I thought I would just add something I've discovered from an old email. I think my supervisor may have been encouraging ALL my research questions to be mixed-method in nature (rather than split with only one mixed-method question) for logistical purposes. I think he is of the view that it is an ambitious form of study to take on and that should things happen in life that intefered with the timeline of it (and deadline for MSc dissertation) then I could still have a complete study just by using the survey (with mainly closed questions but also an open question).

Many thanks,

Jenny :)

Mixed methods studies can indeed be quite demanding, and when you begin with a full-scale quantitative survey in a sequential design, it is asking a lot to do more work than that -- after all, many students would have already have completed their data collection at that point. So, what you are planning to do is very common choice.

In terms of your original posting, I think that if you look at the various sources you cited, you will find a consistent emphasis on mixed methods research designs, more than mixed methods research questions. For mixed methods designs, the key issue is how an additional data source can help you produce a better answer to your research questions. So, in order to justify using something like a sequential explanatory design, you need to have prior research questions or goals that point to the value of such a design.

In terms of the design that you have selected, careful choice of the opened ended questions in a survey can also provide you with the resources to do a sequential explanatory design. In particular, the data sources for such a design can be collected at the same time, so long as they are used in a sequential format where the open-ended qualitative questions serve the purpose of explaining the larger set of quantitative results. If you have not started your data collection yet, spend some time thinking about how a few well-crafted qualitative questions might help you investigate the patterns you find in your quantitative results.

Thank you very much, David :)

I would agree that this all starts with your original question. It should be possible to follow the line of your thinking from that original question to your hypotheses to what data and what type of data will test hypotheses and cumulatively be used to arrive at an answer to your research question. The sequencing of quantitative and qualitative questions and data must also be justified and demonstrated in this sequencing. What you decide about the sequence a priori is part of what is tested and the exploration of the data may suggest that a different sequencing may have produced a different or more complete result - a post analysis consideration that will enrich your discussion section.