Writing the Data Collection Section in Mixed Methods Research - From Mixed-Methods Research to a Journal Article - Conference Proposals and Article Types

Writing for Publication: Transitions and Tools that Support Scholars’ Success - Mary Renck Jalongo, Olivia N. Saracho 2016

Writing the Data Collection Section in Mixed Methods Research
From Mixed-Methods Research to a Journal Article
Conference Proposals and Article Types

As with other forms of empirical research, the data collected in a mixed methods study address the research questions or hypotheses. The data collection process should correspond to the mixed methods research design in the study. This means that researchers synchronize their procedures where both quantitative and qualitative data are collected simultaneously or chronologically where one kind of data are collected and analyzed before the second data collection. For both the qualitative and quantitative methodologies, researchers need to select and provide detailed descriptions of all data collection instruments, such as developer of the instruments (with appropriate citations); format of the instruments; when, how, and why they were administered; the context and focus of data collection; the duration of data collection; and information about the quality of the data collected such as score reliability, score validity, and interrater reliability (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2010). Here is a description of data collection for the mixed methods study of doctoral students’ reading challenges with empirical research articles.

In the first class session, all participants were administered the following two instruments: the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (NDRT) and the Reading Interest Survey (RIS). The NDRT, developed by Brown, Fishco, and Hanna (1993), was used to measure reading ability. This instrument, which is appropriate for Grades 9 to 16, college students, and adults, is a 118-item test containing two subtests: Vocabulary (80 items) and Comprehension (38 items). Each item on the NDRT contains a five-choice response option. This test was selected because of its widespread use among researchers, adequate score reliability, and score validity that have been reported in the literature, as well as the fact that normative data are available on very large samples of high school and college students (Brown et al., 1993). For the present investigation, both the reading vocabulary scores and reading comprehension scores were analyzed. Score reliability (i.e., KR-20) was .85 (95 % confidence interval [CI] = .82, .88) for the reading vocabulary subtest and .69 (95 % CI = .63, .75) for the comprehension subtest. The RIS contains 62 open- and closed-ended items; therefore, the mixed data collection style used in the present study could be referred to as Type 2 data. (Burgess, Benge, Onwuegbuzie, & Mallette 2012, p. 12)