1010442
research-article2021
NSQXXX10.1177/08943184211010442Nursing Science QuarterlyReed/Philosophical Issues
Philosophical Issues
The Philosophical Turn to Mixed Methods
for Nursing Science
Pamela G. Reed, RN; PhD; FAAN1
Abstract
In this article, I explore the turn to mixed methods in nursing. I examine the alignment of key characteristics (philosophical
underpinnings and the concept of integration) of mixed methods with nursing’s disciplinary perspective and its links with
theory. I also provide a brief overview of the history and current status of mixed methods and conclude by looking to the
future to suggest an additional twist in the turn to mixed methods for nursing science.
Keywords
disciplinary perspective, mixed methods, nursing science, philosophy, research
The dust kicked up by the paradigm wars has settled and
mixed methods has become an accepted approach to research.
[See Florczak (2014, 2017) and Onwuegbuzie (2012) for
succinct overviews of this philosophical debate on research
paradigms.] Review of mixed-methods literature over the
past two decades indicates that it is no longer novel or con-
troversial to use both qualitative and quantitative methods
within the same study. Our nursing research literature reveals
an astounding array of scientific methodologies—grounded
theory method, the Parsesciencing method, participatory
action research, and experimental, for example—to study
nursing questions, and mixed methods is another approach
appearing more frequently in nursing research. An often-
cited strength of mixed methods in general is its capacity to
generate findings that tap the breadth and depth of complex
phenomena by explicitly incorporating qualitative and quan-
titative methods in the same study. But it is the enthusiasm of
doctoral students, our future leaders in nursing science, that
motivated me to look a little deeper into the philosophical
implications of this turn to mixed methods for knowledge
development.
In this column I address the alignment of key characteris-
tics (philosophical underpinnings and the concept of integra-
tion) of mixed methods with nursing’s disciplinary
perspective and its links with theory. I begin with a brief
overview of the history and current status of mixed methods
and conclude by looking to the future to suggest an addi-
tional twist in the turn to mixed methods for nursing science.
Along the way, I recommend a few readings on key mixed-
methods topics.
Historically, the “intellectual wedge” that gave momen-
tum to this movement was appearance of the concept of tri-
angulation in the literature on methods (Tashakkori & Tedlie,
1998, p. 41). In psychology, Campbell and Fiske’s (1959)
Nursing Science Quarterly
2021, Vol. 34(3) 263­–267
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/08943184211010442
https://doi.org/10.1177/08943184211010442
journals.sagepub.com/home/nsq
multitrait-multimethod matrix was used to control for the
effect of a particular quantitative method in measuring a psy-
chological trait. In sociology, Denzin (1978) used triangula-
tion to combine different data sources to study one social
phenomenon. His typology outlined four sources of triangu-
lation: data, investigator, theory, and method. Later, Creswell
(1995) and others extended the idea of triangulation beyond
the focus on enhancing internal or external validity; they
elaborated on convergence of sources into combinations of
qualitative and quantitative approaches that varied by domi-
nance of approach, or by temporal sequence in use of the two
approaches to enhance meaning or understanding of the find-
ings. In addition, philosophical perspectives or “paradigms”
typically associated with either qualitative or quantitative
approaches were mixed within activities of other phases of
the research process such as conceptualizing the problem and
interpreting the results.
Today, there is an abundance of literature (particularly in
the Journal of Mixed Methods Research and the International
Journal of Multiple Research Approaches), textbooks, and
handbooks on mixed methods, presenting various taxono-
mies of mixed methods designs, strategies for integration of
its diverse components, and guidelines for evaluation and
publication. Reviews of the literature indicate that nurses’
use of mixed methods has been lower compared to research-
ers in other fields such as education, mathematics, and school
psychology, although it may be on the rise. In a study of
1
College of Nursing, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
Contributing Editor:
Pamela G. Reed, RN; PhD; FAAN, Professor and Interim Associate Dean
for Academic Affairs, College of Nursing, The University of Arizona, 1305
N. Martin St., Tucson, AZ 85721-0203, USA.
Email: preed@arizona.edu
264 Nursing Science Quarterly 34(3)
mixed-method publications by nurses across research jour-
nals from 1998 to 2014, Beck and Harrison (2016) found that
nearly all the 294 studies identified were published after
2010. Investigators’ review of 10 peer-reviewed nursing
research journals from 2014 to 2018 identified 134 mixed-
methods reports (about 2% of the total research articles) that
included at least one nurse author (Younas, Pederson, &
Laoagan Tayaben, 2019). Irvine et al. (2020) reviewed five
top research journals from 2015 to 2018 and found 34 mixed-
methods articles published by nurses. They suggested that
dissemination of reporting guidelines (see Eckhardt &
DeVon, 2017) increased the quality and number of published
mixed-methods papers by nurses.
Congruence With Nursing’s
Disciplinary Perspective
The link between one’s philosophical views and choice of
methodology is a relevant concern in the scholarship of
knowledge development. Any consideration of philosophical
paradigms should include awareness of their potential to
marginalize or otherwise limit vision of beliefs and values
(of researchers or participants) relevant to inquiry. There is a
considerable body of literature discussing and debating the
philosophical underpinnings of mixed methods. [See Coates
(2020) for an excellent and current overview, including para-
digmatic, single paradigm, multiparadigm, and meta-para-
digmatic stances in mixed methods.]
The nursing disciplinary perspective (Fitzpatrick, Reed,
Smith, Smith, & Roy, 2019) is distinct but wide enough to
accommodate many approaches to research, including mixed
methods. The ontological component of this perspective
broadly identifies what is real, substantive, and central to
nursing inquiry: Unitary human-environment-health pro-
cesses across the lifespan and healing relationships that
enhance well-being. The epistemological component of this
perspective includes as accepted forms of scientific knowl-
edge conceptual, empirical, and practice-generated. Further,
the practice of nursing science, for example, as articulated in
intermodernism (Reed, 2018, 2019), depicts nursing knowl-
edge as integrating diverse ways of knowing including prac-
tice (in terms of the trusted, caring nurse-patient process) as a
pivotal source along with ethical, empirical, and sociopoliti-
cal dimensions. The methodology behind mixed methods
espouses a research process based upon integration of diverse
sources of knowledge through simultaneous use of diverse
designs and techniques to gather evidence. Importantly,
Fawcett (2015) proposed that mixed methods is manifested in
nursing practice.
Philosophical views espoused by mixed-methods research-
ers align or at least coexist with the philosophical disciplinary
perspective of a nurse researcher. [See Shannon-Baker (2016)
for a helpful overview of traditional philosophical perspec-
tives often associated with mixed-methods paradigms: prag-
matism, critical realism, and dialectical pluralism.] Two
additional paradigms are the transformative-emancipatory
paradigm and the performative paradigm.
The transformative-emancipatory perspective in mixed
methods (Mertens, 2007, 2010) reflects in part the realist
ontology, identifying what is real rather than leaving it to a
relativist or pragmatic perspective. This view emphasizes as
real the privilege of power and lack of social, political, and
material resources that result in marginalization of individu-
als, their problems, and perspectives. It promotes an inten-
tional focus on facilitating others’ voices of and collaboration
with marginalized and minority individuals. Sociohistorical
contexts of researcher and participant are essential consider-
ations in scientific inquiry. Nursing epistemology, including
its ethical and sociopolitical patterns of knowing, is congru-
ent with this paradigm. Related, Giddings and Grant (2007)
argued for including the perspective of situatedness in
mixed-methods research lest it become just another positivist
approach to science that silences different or conflicting
views. Individuals are situated in various contexts including
the social, spiritual, and embodied. Mixed methods must be
a “research practice conscious of its underlying assumptions,
beliefs, and politics” (Giddings & Grant, 2007, p. 59) that
does not let us forget the complexity of the world in which
we study and practice nursing.
The performative paradigm is a preferable view for mixed
methods according to Schoonenboom (2019), based upon her
comparisons between this and several key paradigms found in
mixed methods. She drew heavily from philosopher of science
Andrew Pickering and cites his classic 1995 work The Mangle
of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science to discuss some key
assumptions of this paradigm. In research as in clinical prac-
tice, there is an ongoing mangle of interactions with elements
in the research context that inform knowledge as an emergent
process. Researchers do not readily flip their philosophical
view, but they are flexible to acknowledge the agency of the
particular world (for nurses this can be a practice domain) they
are investigating. Nurses inhabit different worlds (as when
nurses dwell in different domains of research and practice)
that interact to inform their inquiry. When researchers engage
in inquiry of their domain of reality, “reality talks back” and
not as a passive subject. This active dialogue between the real-
ity of practice and research is reflected in Fawcett’s (2015)
practice-informed perspective of single-case mixed-methods
research and in intermodern philosophy, where practice is not
only a place of knowledge application but a dynamic context
for generating knowledge (Reed, 2019).
Centrality of Integration in Mixed
Methods
The term integration strikes a familiar tone in nursing con-
gruent with nurses’ approaches in both science and practice:
Integration implies an organized connecting of differentiated
parts over time (like the organic process of lifespan develop-
ment); a holistic rather than additive summing of parts; and a
Reed/Philosophical Issues 265
deliberative working within pluralism, contradiction, and
conflict to bring something together in a meaningful way.
Turns out, integration is a pivotal component in mixed-meth-
ods research.
My definition of mixed methods based upon several read-
ings in the field including Creswell’s (2018) standard
description illustrates the centrality of integration: Mixed
methods represents a set of systematic approaches to a study
in which qualitative and quantitative designs, data collec-
tion, analyses, and interpretations are integrated to generate
theory-guided knowledge. Differing forms (traditionally
labeled qualitative and quantitative) of data are needed to
answer a research question. Fetters and Molina-Azorin
(2017) classically describe integration as “the linking of
qualitative and quantitative approaches and dimensions
together to create a new whole or a more holistic understand-
ing than achieved by either alone” (p. 293). This integration
provides contextual as well as in-depth understanding of
phenomena in a way congruent with Fawcett’s (2015)
description of practice: “Ideally, nursing practice involves
collection of both word and number information and data
that are integrated to form an understanding of the whole
person’s health condition” (p. 168).
Given the diversity of components and knowledge in
mixed methods, it is not surprising that integration is a criti-
cal attribute of mixed methods for generating a clear state-
ment about the findings for a given research aim. Researchers
are advised to articulate their intentions for integration from
the start in designing the study and then to regard integration
as an ongoing process that informs and enriches scientific
findings (Fetters & Molina-Azorin, 2019). If integration is
not pervasive or occurs only at the final phases (interpreta-
tion and conclusions), the research is more appropriately
labeled as multimethod than mixed methods (Bazeley, 2017).
Scholars offer a variety of strategies for tapping the synergy
inherent in integrating different data sources in mixed methods.
For example, Sandelowski (2011) detailed several productive
outcomes possible from combining different components
throughout the research process. Chatterjee (2011) elaborated
on how experimental and case study designs can be combined
logically within a coherent epistemological perspective of sci-
ence. The literature has abundant sources about scholarly and
creative strategies for integration across all components of the
research process, including sampling, instrumentation, data col-
lection, and defining conceptual domains and constructs [see
recent comprehensive sources by Akerblad, Seppanen-Jarvela,
and Haapakosk (2020); Creswell & Plano Clark (2018).]
Theory as an Epistemic Resource in
Mixed Methods
There are three basic outcomes of integration from analyses
of different data sources for a given research problem
(Fetters, Curry, & Creswell, 2013): confirmation (findings
support each other), expansion (findings diverge but expand
insights or complement each other), and discordance (find-
ings are incongruous or conflictual). Uprichard and Dawney
(2019) expanded strategies of integration to include diffrac-
tion as a special approach to exploit discordant results.
Diffraction, a term borrowed from physics about wave pat-
terns, fractures perspectives and expectations about phenom-
ena to expose new insights that empirically capture inherent
contradictions and complexity.
Uprichard and Dawney (2019) incorporate ideas from two
philosophers of science, Karen Barad and Donna Haraway,
who applied this optical metaphor to let “the messiness and
complexity of the world speak” (p. 27). Uprichard and
Dawney cite a health-related research example from Mol’s
(2002) The Body Multiple about persons with diabetes who
display their own unique patterns and experiences of diabe-
tes despite epistemologically there being a standard list of
symptoms for the illness labeled Type-2 diabetes. Their point
illustrated by Mol (2002) is that while the empirical data
show diversity and difference, there may be coherence in the
underlying explanation of phenomena (Mol, 2002).
Integration is a theory-laden process, and theoretical think-
ing can help make sense of puzzling results in mixed-methods
research. Integration may not deliver data that obviously
cohere for an irrefutable scientific explanation, but then no
research method does this. Integration exposes contradictions
and inconsistencies that are compelling and ultimately pro-
ductive in the practice of science. Whether integration results
in confirmation, expansion, or discordance, once sources of
error due to bias and measurement or other threats to internal
validity are addressed, the researcher seeks explanations from
theory. Theories facilitate tentative but systematic explana-
tions and answers to research questions.
Theory also can be an important tool in guiding decisions
about how data are used in mixed methods, particularly given
the wide range of possibilities for interpreting reality.
Sandelowski (2011) explained that data become qualitative or
quantitative based upon researchers’ decisions about “whether
words, shapes, symbols, numbers or some other form best rep-
resent the features of the phenomenon under investigation” (p.
343). “Data collection and analysis approaches are determined
in part by decisions concerning the translation of participant’s
responses into meanings about health” (p. 346). Similarly,
Bazeley (2018) explained that “[a]ny phenomenon has both
qualities and quantities, each of which might be described
both objectively and subjectively” and “in multiple ways using
both numbers and words” (p. 335). Further, Bazeley proposed
that the phenomena studied in research are “ontologically and
epistemologically neutral” (p. 335), implying a need for some
guiding philosophical or theoretical framework.
The Theory-Research Link Flows in Both
Directions
Theory is not only a resource for generating scientific knowledge
in mixed methods. The integrative nature of mixed methods in
266 Nursing Science Quarterly 34(3)
turn can foster nursing theorizing. Nursing science scholars
acknowledge the advantages of linking theory and research—for
example, to enhance understanding of relevant patterns or regu-
larities within specific domains of practice and to provide insight
into underlying mechanisms or processes that help explain (not
just describe) a phenomenon. To accomplish this, nurses—per-
haps more than those in other disciplines—integrate various pat-
terns of knowing into their research and theories. A mixed methods
approach provides unique opportunities for application, develop-
ment, and refinement of nursing theories within the same study.
Two examples from health research are applicable to nursing
research and theory development. In one mixed-methods study, a
team of researchers illustrate movement through both the explor-
atory and confirmatory phases, incorporating grounded theory
methods into the research process to develop a theory of chronic
pain management (Shim, Johnson, Bradt, & Gasson, 2021).
Another mixed-methods study provided the context for a methodi-
cal series of steps to develop and test a theory-based culturally
appropriate mental health intervention (Nastasi et al., 2007). The
investigators began with a conceptual model and advanced to
development and testing of a theory to guide the intervention.
Transcending the Divide
The turn to mixed methods not only expands our repertoire of
research methods and theory development opportunities but
encourages confidence that our discipline can generate
knowledge from and about the open, dynamic, and complex
nature of human-environment-health phenomena. Results
from two reviews of mixed methods in nursing research indi-
cated increasing use of integration in mixed methods: In an
earlier study, researchers in 12% of the articles reported inte-
grating at both levels of data analysis and interpretation (Beck
& Harrison, 2016); a second study showed that approximately
70% of the research reports included some form of integra-
tion (Younas et al., 2019). The practice of integration will
likely increase as more nurses learn about mixed methods
along with the vital links between research and theory.
Despite the widespread popularity of mixed methods as a
design that depends on making a distinction between qualita-
tive and quantitative approaches, there is an undercurrent of
scholars who reject this notion. They encourage movement
away from dichotomous thinking that inhibits fruitful integra-
tion in mixed methods or any research. Sandelowski (2014)
stressed that the binary perspective of qualitative/quantitative
method is a “serious impediment” and “reifies false distinc-
tions” within research. She clarified that we must not use these
methods to divide the knowledge that we seek for our research
questions: “Data are neither QL nor QN, but rather aspects of
experiences or phenomena transformed into words, numbers,
visual forms, and the like, each of which may in turn be trans-
formed again into other forms” (Sandelowski, 2014, p. 5).
Onwuegbuzie (2012) wrote at length about finding the radical
middle where extremes are either avoided or bridged to make
meaning. This requires a mutual process of communicating and
negotiating and involves epistemic compromises to achieve a
coherent understanding about a problem for the good of the
discipline.
Integration is central to mixed methods then, not so much
because there are ontological distinctions between qualita-
tive and quantitative data but because it is a way to be open
to and productive in the face of complexity and contradiction
realized through epistemological diversity of methods inher-
ent in the practice of science. Use of theories and theoretical
thinking facilitate development of knowledge through the
integrative process of mixed methods.
For doctoral students in nursing science, learning about
mixed methods may not be just a matter of learning the struc-
ture, content, and strategies of the process. It should also
require wrestling with and clarifying their philosophical per-
spective about the phenomena they study and its congruence
with their method of choice. Their philosophical work has
support from nursing’s existing theoretical and philosophical
resources that transcend binary thinking by integrative views
of human-environment-health phenomena and healing rela-
tionships and by nurses’ expert integration of both numbers
and words in their practice.
In conclusion, I propose that we consider an additional twist
in the philosophical turn to mixed methods: To transcend the
qualitative and quantitative divide and broaden the concept of
integration to include nursing theory-based integration of out-
comes generated by all data sources. In an editorial for an early
issue of the Journal of Mixed Methods Research, Tashakkori
and Creswell (2007) acknowledged the open question of
whether a single “mixed (hybrid, integrated) question should
[be] written that transcends the subsequent qualitative and
quantitative subquestions” (p. 208). Then, setting this question
aside and concerned to advance understanding of the nature of
integration, they instructed mixed-methods researchers to
include an explicit [my emphasis] research question about
“how the findings of various strands [quantitative and qualita-
tive] relate to one another. . . . Answers to the question should
be explicitly explored and presented at the end of the article”
(Tashakkori & Creswell, 2007, p. 210). However, I suggest less
emphasis on formulating research questions that reinforce any
dichotomies and instead regard integration as a methodological
assumption that is not up for question but used to guide the
integration of all types of data that may be studied within
mixed-methods research. May mixed methods continue evolv-
ing to where integration of diverse and multiple sources of data
is implicit and based on philosophical and theoretical perspec-
tives that something substantive beyond the form of the data is
the operant influence in what we discover in research.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the authorship and/or publication of this review.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the authorship and/
or publication of this review.
Reed/Philosophical Issues 267
ORCID iD
Pamela G. Reed https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2235-4403
References
Akerblad, L., Seppanen-Jarvela, R., & Haapakosk, K. (2020).
Integrative strategies in mixed methods research. Journal
of Mixed Methods Research. [Advance online publication].
https://doi.org/10.1177/1558689820957125
Bazeley, P. (2017). Integrating analyses in mixed methods research.
Sage.
Bazeley, P. (2018). ‘Mixed methods in my bones’: Transcending
the qualitative-quantitative divide. International Journal of
Multiple Research Approaches, 10(1), 334-341.
Beck, C. T., & Harrison, L. (2016). Mixed-methods research in the
discipline of nursing. Advances in Nursing Science, 39(2), 224-
234.
Campbell, D., & Fiske, D.W. (1959). Convergent and discriminant
validation by the multitrait-multimethod matrix. Psychological
Bulletin, 54, 297-312.
Chatterjee, A. (2011). Ontology, epistemology, and multimethod
research in political science. Philosophy of the Social Sciences,
43(1), 73-99.
Coates, A. (2020). The prevalence of philosophical assumptions
described in mixed methods research in education. Journal of
Mixed Methods Research. Advance online publication. https://
doi.org/10.1177/1558689820958210
Creswell, J. W. (1995). Research design: Qualitative and quantita-
tive approaches. SAGE.
Creswell, J. W. (2018). Revisiting mixed methods and advancing sci-
entific practices. In S. N. Hesse-Biber & R. B. Johnson (Eds.), The
Oxford handbook of multimethod and mixed methods research
inquiry (pp. 1-24). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2018). Designing and con-
ducting mixed methods research (3rd ed.). Sage.
Denzin, N. K. (Ed.). (1978). Sociological methods: A sourcebook.
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Eckhardt, A. L., & DeVon, H. A. (2017). The MIXED frame-
work: A novel approach to evaluating mixed-methods rigor.
Nursing Inquiry, 24(4), Article e12189. https://doi.org/10.1111/
nin.12189
Fawcett, J. (2015). Invisible nursing research: Thoughts about
mixed methods research and nursing practice. Nursing Science
Quarterly, 28(2), 167-168.
Fetters, M. D., Curry, L. A., & Creswell, J. W. (2013).
Achieving integration in mixed methods designs—
Principles and practices. Health Services Research, 48(6-
part2), 2134-2156.
Fetters, M. D., & Molina-Azorin, J. F. (2017). The Journal of Mixed
Methods Research starts a new decade: The mixed methods
research integration trilogy and its dimensions. Journal of
Mixed Methods Research, 11(3), 291-307.
Fetters, M. D., & Molina-Azorin, J. F. (2019). Rebuttal—
Conceptualizing integration during both the data collection
and data interpretation phases: A response to David Morgan.
Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 13(1), 12-14. https://doi.
org/10.1177/155868981878596a
Fitzpatrick, J. J., Reed, P. G., Smith, M. C., Smith, M. J., & Roy,
C. (2019). Guest Editorial: The nursing disciplinary perspec-
tive – 50 years ago and the view forward. Advances in Nursing
Science, 42(1), 2.
Florczak, K. L. (2014). Purists need not apply: The case for prag-
matism in mixed methods research. Nursing Science Quarterly,
27(4), 278-282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894318414546419
Florczak, K. L. (2017). The dichotomy: How to resolve. Nursing
Science Quarterly, 30(3), 199-200. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0894318417711687
Giddings, L. S., & Grant, B. M. (2007). A Trojan horse for posi-
tivism? A critique of mixed methods research. Advances in
Nursing Science, 30(1), 52-60.
Irvine, F. E., Clark, M. T., Efstathiou, N., Herber, O. R., Howroyd,
F., Gratrix, L, Sammut, D., Trumm, A., Hanssen, T. A., Taylor,
J., & Bradbury-Jones, C. (2020). The state of mixed methods
research in nursing: A focused mapping review and synthesis.
Journal of Advanced Nursing, 76, 2798-2809.
Mertens, D. M. (2007). Transformative paradigm: Mixed methods
and social justice. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1(3),
212-225.
Mertens, D. M. (2010). Transformative mixed methods research.
Qualitative Inquiry, 16, 469-474.
Mol, A. (2002). The body multiple: Ontology in medical practice.
Duke University Press.
Nastasi, B. K., Hitchcock, J., Sarkar, S., Burkholder, G., Varjas,
K., & Jayasena, A. (2007). Mixed methods in intervention
research: Theory to adaptation. Journal of Mixed Methods
Research, 1(2), 164-182.
Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2012). Putting the MIXED back into quan-
titative and qualitative research in educational research and
beyond: Moving toward the radical middle. International
Journal of Multiple Research Approaches, 6(3), 192-219.
Reed, P. G. (2018). A philosophy of nursing science and practice:
Intermodernism. In P. G. Reed & N. B. C. Shearer (Eds.),
Nursing knowledge and theory innovation: Advancing the sci-
ence of practice (2nd ed., pp. 21-46). Springer.
Reed, P. G. (2019). Intermodernism: A philosophical perspective
for development of scientific nursing theory. Advances in
Nursing Science, 42(1), 17-27.
Sandelowski, M. (2011). When a cigar is not just a cigar: Alternative
takes on data and data analysis. Research in Nursing & Health,
34, 342-352.
Sandelowski, M. (2014). Unmixing mixed methods research.
Research in Nursing & Health, 37, 3-8.
Schoonenboom, J. (2019). A performative paradigm for mixed
methods research. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 13(3),
284-300.
Shannon-Baker, P. (2016). Making paradigms meaningful in mixed
methods research. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 10(4),
319-334.
Shim, M., Johnson, B., Bradt, J., & Gasson, S. (2021). A mixed meth-
ods–grounded theory design for producing more refined theoret-
ical models. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 15(1), 61-86.
Tashakkori, A., & Creswell, J. W. (2007). Exploring the nature
of research questions in mixed methods research. Journal of
Mixed Methods Research, 1(3), 207-211.
Tashakkori, A., & Tedlie, C. (1998). Mixed methodology:
Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. Sage.
Uprichard, E., & Dawney, L. (2019). Data diffraction: Challenging
data integration in mixed methods research. Journal of Mixed
Methods Research, 13(1), 19-32.
Younas, A., Pederson, M., & Laoagan Tayaben, J. (2019). Review
of mixed-methods research in nursing. Nursing Research,
68(6), 464-472.