No. How would you suggest an improvement without data to back it up? David Booth

Without seeing your questionnaire and research question/hypothesis it is difficult to answer your question. However, if you are simply wanting to find out the impact of a complaint on sonographers and are not testing a hypothesis or aiming to generalise your findings (depending on the level of study) I think it is acceptable to use descriptive stats. Also, thematic analysis is often utilised for qualitative survey data but whether it is appropriate for your study depends on the research paradigm. Hope this helps and good luck with your dissertation.

Gina -

You said "I was advised to use descriptive statistics only for the quantitative data analysis. ... Creswell seems to suggest I should be using inferential statistics as well." (Don't know Creswell.) - Well, if you were to do inference with quantitative data, continuous data would be nice, then you need to have had a plan. Very seldom can things 'work out' without a plan in place from the beginning. You would have to either have done a probability-of-selection-based (randomized design-based) sample selection, or if you have a good covariate or covariates, you might be able to use a model-based approach. But I assume you have neither, and that is why you were told you could only do descriptive statistics on the data you collected. (Perhaps you could do some speculation which you could investigate with further research/data gathering.)

When you want to do inference, plan ahead.

Best wishes - Jim

Since you have adopted the mixed methods light (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011; 2018), which is the questionnaire variant of the convergent design, whereby the qualitative part is accessory to the quantitative one, you should do descriptive and inferential statistics. Thematic analysis can unravel themes and quotes to validate and aggrandize the findings of the survey. You might find Nowell et al. (2017), attached, of interest.

Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications. https://books.google.com/books/about/Designing_and_Conducting_Mixed_Methods_R.html?id=YcdlPWPJRBcC

Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2018). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications. https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/designing-and-conducting-mixed-methods-research/book241842

Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. E., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917733847

Article Thematic Analysis: Striving to Meet the Trustworthiness Criteria

Good luck,

My first question would be whether you have hypotheses, because if so, that takes you beyond descriptive statistics. Second, I am not sure what is the source of the qualitative data -- is it open ended questions from the survey?

Beyond that, the basic issue I see is that the key to mixed methods research is the integration of the results from the qualitative and quantitative portions of the project. If you do descriptive statistics and thematic analysis, how do you plan to integrate those results?

How then can you test the relationship of your variables

Thank you everyone for all your responses. It is very much appreciated.