I am a PhD scholar, employing parallel convergent mixed methods design with pragmatism as a paradigm. the research topic is : Exploring authentic leadership in relation to organizational development of public and private sector university in Pakistan.
Syed - Michael is correct. Mixed methods research encourages, although is not always pragmatic, the pragmatism paradigm. It is based on the notion that mixed methods wants to explore a concept from more than one worldview/philosophical/methodological, method/design perspective; therefore making it more 'practical' in terms of overall outcomes and impact. If you add approaches, such as Participatory Action Research, to the equation - then you also start to add more theory i.e. critical social theory and emancipation. This often results in organisational/community change - which is more 'pragmatic' than single methodology 'confined' quantitative research (such as an RCT) and/or single qualitative research (such as Grounded Theory).
You may choose, if you want, to see pragmatism as a philosophy, a method or a worldview (ideology). Philosophically seen pragmatism is the most importat and the only authentic contribution of American philosophy, beginning with the ideas of Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, George H. Mead and some other thinkers in the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Seen as a method means: acting determines thinking (not vice versa), the value of a certain way to solve a problem is justified only by its success - not by forerunning (for instance ethical ) principles (as they were developed in the classic European philosophy). There were (and is) much argumentative controversy of the real value of pragmatic philosophy because complex problems which are not solvable with simple Win-Win-methods or a behavioristic system of reward and punishment are not subject-matter of pragmatism. RG happens as a pure pragmatic system with its permanent requests, congratulations and rewards of getting some scores (or the stay out of them if you are not busy). So many people ask only some questions to get more scores - they are prisoners of a pragmatic system - if this is reasonable, valuable for the human life to be fulfilled - that is another question. And that question had to do with our willingness to make ourselves as a tool of a pragmatically working system. RG is not harmful, it is an academic social network, it is funny and it is pleasant to discuss with new friends and to create new personal relations. Unfortunately there also exists ideologies in the world which catch people with pragmatic successful actions and views. So the basic question remains: Is the truth of things reliant on their successful function or is truth a variable absolutely indifferent or independent from success of your acting? Good luck with pragmatism!
As your first respondant has noted, David Morgan has written on this and a number of his papers, as well as excellent responses to questions, are available on this site. I'm intending to read his book, 'Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: A Pragmatic Approach' myself. There are a couple of preview chapters available on the publisher's website: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/integrating-qualitative-and-quantitative-methods/book7116#preview
I personally appreciate the answers, given by the intellectuals of the time. Annear! excellent. Thanks to all of you
I agree that pragmatism is probably the current dominant paradigm in mixed methods, and I have argued that is a useful approach to social science research in general.
Article Pragmatism as a Paradigm for Social Research
A different issue that you should consider relates to the underlying assumptions behind the so-called parallel convergent design. The problem with this design is immediately apparent in its name: things that are parallel cannot converge and things that converge cannot be parallel. So, in practice you need to think long and hard about how you will accomplish convergence (or more broadly, integration) in any design where the qualitative and quantitative research procedures operate in parallel.
Dear Morgan
Concurrent triangulation design (Convergent Parallel design) is that things first converged from both approaches on one point. parallel in the sense that results of both Qn and QL data posit the sameness/similarity in point of view. It is convergent Parallel not parallel convergent design. Paradigm of the study is pragmatism which posits that problem is more important than the method ( Sorry I am showing Lamp to the Sun but what can be done, research is the progressive discovery of our ignorance).
Convergent parallel designs are a specific terminology introduced by John Creswell. In his version, the original qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis are completed separately (i.e., in parallel) and then compared to assess convergence. As far as I can tell, he intends for this be a replacement for what was traditionally known as triangulation (a term that is now seldom used because it had so many different meanings).
Syed, at this point you should not need anymore knowledge on the subject, but here it is anyways.
A worldview is a framework of beliefs and ideas through which a person interprets the world and interacts with it; actions guided by beliefs--see Guba, 1990. Pragmatists tend to perform mixed methods research due to not having boundaries and therefore have the freedom of choice in their methods, techniques, and procedures for research that best meets their purpose and understanding of the problem--see Creswell, 2013...he has many publications on mixed methods.
To help you appreciate pragmatism, I suggest that you understand the methods applied to derive conclusions in the context of quali analysis. This will be helpful:
http://researchtalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Miles-Huberman-Saldana-Drawing-and-Verifying-Conclusions.pdf
Pragmatism is a research philosophy based on the epistemology that there is no single way to learning but many different ways of understanding because there are multiple realities (Saunders, et al. 2012; Collis, et al 2014 and Wilson, 2010). Knowledge of the multiple realities is therefore gained through an integration of multiple research methods encompassing both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Through this integration, the researcher hopes to gain a better understanding of the manifestation problem/s under study from the views of people who lived the experiences and from scientific modelling and testing of facts and figures . This mixed method approach will enhance a more detailed understanding of research questions and results leading to a balanced conclusion on the challenges and opportunities about the research problem
What Pure Maswoswere has described is much closer to social constructivism, rather than pragmatism.
I have been working on philosophical paradigms in research and found the contribution of Prof. Morgan as the path creating insights. My work would be purposefully confined to positivist-constructivist, pragmatism, realism and critical aspects.
Because pragmatism is designed to be a broad paradigm (like constructivism or realism), it is intended handle any kind of situation.
what is the recommended method for testing the inter-rater reliability of the data (I'm using thematic analysis for semi-structured interviews) from a pragmatic perspective?
In case someone is still looking for an answer/resource - you may benefit from reading the article 'Pragmatism as a Paradigm for Social Research' by Prof. David Morgan
Dear respected researchers,
Thanks a lot for your valuable and insightful answers. These are interesting answers I have come across and extremely helpful.
I believe that pragmatism provides an excellent basis for action research, because action itself is the basis for pragmatism as philosophy. I have attached one of my articles on pragmatism which emphasizes the role of action, although it does not discuss action research itself.
Dear researchers,
All these information provided for this question were so much helpful for me also to understand this philosophy very well. Thank you so much.