If you start at your research question you will best find the type of research design to answer your question, which might be quantitative or qual, or mixed. You might find it useful to look at some mixed methods articles as the authors often talk about their philosophical understanding of the world and how they aligned themselves in regards of their question and paradigm.

Dear Thinh Hoang ,

Research philosophy is much broader than simply quantitative, qualitative and mixed. These are essentially approaches to data analysis, not philosophy.

It would be wise to study research philosophy more deeply. This would enable you to appreciate that there is no contradiction between adopting a constructivist philosophy and collecting and analysing quantitative data.

Qual/Quant is a false dilenma.

Indeed, each side should inform the other.

Matt

There is no conflict of philosophy at all. What you have done was to mix methods and the belief now is that your philosophy is now pragmatism. I am happy with your observation that it is unavoidable to mix. However, online survey design is more of quantitative (were your questions closed, open or both??) I am keen to know how you encooperated constructionist philosophy????. There are four major mixed methods designs that you have to master (triangulation, embedded, exploratory & explanatory) grasping them will enhance your competence in mixed methods research

I agree with others that qualitative and quantitative are not paradigms, they are applied approaches research to research design and methods. I disagree, however, that you need to look more deeply into abstract issues of philosophy. Instead, I would advocate looking into mixed methods and the typically ways that combines qualitative and quantitative methods.

In particular, you should think about your purposes for using each method, as well as how you would effectively integrate the two sets of results.

I remember that my colleague (her major is public health: health service research) was conducting the mixed method research to examine/determine the effectiveness of her intervention. She utilized both a survey and focus group interviews. However, I think that it is possible for us to collect both type of data from the survey (e.g., "please write down what you think of the intervention"). Why not?

Last year, I wrote a paper by two mixed studies.

The mixed research method paper based on qualitative research which is one of them was rejected twice.In the end, it was accepted as a material paper by another publisher.

The number of interviews for that paper was small. In addition, it was the reason for the reject by the reviewers committee and reviewers consistently that the selection method of the subjects of the study did not meet the standards of quantitative research.

However, the difference in sample collection criteria between qualitative and quantitative research is not an essential problem.

Thinh - The relationship between quantitative and qualitative research is supplementary to each other There is nothing like ‘water and petrol’ in terms of research philosophy. Although in earlier researches, there was a strong distinction between quantitative and qualitative research and researchers were mostly following either of the two. But, the trend has started to change and there is possibility of using a mixed method approach e.g., in single subject case study method, a researcher can use quantitative and qualitative variables. Also quantitative research can be supported by qualitative data to make it more meaningful and interpretative.