Qian (Eric) Luo is a PhD candidate in public policy and public administration and research associate in the Department of Health Policy and Management, George Washington University. His research focuses on community health centers, the health workforce, social determinants of health, hospital and insurance market competition, cost-effectiveness analysis, and mixed methods.Abstract: Public administration scholars have publicized the benefits of mixed methods research and exhorted researchers to embrace mixed methods research design. Despite increasing calls for and numbers of mixed methods publications, thus far there has been no rigorous assessment of the value added by mixed methods research designs. This article provides an assessment of mixed methods articles published in leading public administration and public policy journals. The authors assess methodological quality, study purpose, and research design in order to determine the added value of mixed methods research designs. Findings highlight the promise of mixed methods research in public administration and public policy. Realizing this promise will require better appreciation of the added benefits of mixed methods designs, dedicated effort to improve the qualitative component of mixed methods studies, and greater attention to integrating the qualitative and quantitative components of mixed methods studies.
Evidence for Practice• Increased use of mixed methods research can help us better understand and address complex public administration and public policy issues. • To derive the full benefits of mixed methods research, researchers need to improve the quality of qualitative strands of mixed methods research studies and communicate methodological information in greater detail. • To advance the use and value of mixed methods research, researchers and practitioners need to question the assumptions, interpretations, and limitations of dominant quantitative methodologies.
Recently, there have been a variety of arguments voiced to encourage that more attention be given to the role qualitative methods can play in mixed methods research in public policy and public administration. This article discusses these claims and describes the benefits of qualitative approaches, and how qualitative research methods can be leveraged to strengthen mixed methods research in public administration. We also provide a guide for improving the credibility of mixed methods research through increasing transparency and discussions of all methodological decisions. This study is based on a systematic content analysis of 186 mixed methods studies published in public policy and public administration journals between 2010 and 2018. We found that findings from the quantitative methods dominated the mixed methods studies, little diversity in data collection and analysis methods, and frequent failure to integrate insights from both methods. We also analyzed the 36 qualitative‐dominant studies in the sample, and illuminated seven different ways that authors of qualitative‐dominant studies leveraged the qualitative strand to strengthen mixed methods research. We developed lessons from our analysis of the qualitative‐dominant articles on how to incorporate qualitative methods in a thoughtful manner, articulate a role for each strand, and effectively support findings with one or more strands.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.