Towards a flexible online mixed method design with a feedback loop |
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Authors: | Bojana Lobe Vasja Vehovar |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Informatics and Methodology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Kardeljeva pl. 5, Ljubljana, Slovenia |
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Abstract: | The notion of mixed methods design relates to the research studies that combine qualitative and quantitative approaches. However,
most of these studies are tailored to specific research problem in a particular study and are typically limited to a fixed
sequence of qualitative and quantitative approaches (e.g. qualitative interviews followed by a survey or vice-versa). This
limitation historically arises from time, cost and logistic restrictions. As an alternative, we develop an general extension
of fixed mixed method design by introducing a flexible feedback-loop so that several phases can be combined in a flexible
order. In practice, such designs are now increasingly feasible within an information-communication technology environment,
where online respondents are readily available for immediate participation. An online experiment combining interactive series
of web surveys and in-depth web interviews was performed to compare this approach with standard two-phase designs involving
mixed methods. The costs, timing, quality of finiding and experiences of researchers were systematically evaluated. In summary,
the proposed approach proved to be very beneficial. |
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Keywords: | Qualitative methods Quantitative methods Mixed method design Online interviews Web surveys Information-communication technologies |
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