Although focus group discussions (FGDs) represent a popular data collection tool for researchers, they contain an extremely serious flaw: FGD researchers have ultimate power over all decisions made at every stage of the research process--from the conceptualization of the research, to the planning of the research study, to the implementation of the…

The results of a content analysis of the articles published in the leading counseling journal, "Journal of Counseling & Development", between 2002 and 2010 are presented. The authors present a brief description of mixed research to encourage counseling researchers to explore mixed research as a viable research tool. (Contains 3 tables and 1…

This article provides guidelines for conducting, reporting, and evaluating mixed research studies in 3 sections: research formulation, research planning, and research implementation. To date, no such guidelines are available. Detailed descriptions of each subsection are included. The authors hope that these standards assist researchers from the…

The purposes of this paper are to outline seven types of qualitative data analysis techniques, to present step-by-step guidance for conducting these analyses via a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software program (i.e., NVivo9), and to present screenshots of the data analysis process. Specifically, the following seven analyses are…

One of the most important steps in the qualitative research process is analysis of data. The purpose of this article is to provide elements for understanding multiple types of qualitative data analysis techniques available and the importance of utilizing more than one type of analysis, thus utilizing data analysis triangulation, in order to…

The last 100 years have witnessed a fervent debate in the United States about quantitative and qualitative research paradigms. Unfortunately, this has led to a great divide between quantitative and qualitative researchers, who often view themselves in competition with each other. Clearly, this polarization has promoted purists, i.e., researchers…

The purposes of this paper are to identify common errors made by researchers when dealing with reliability coefficients and to outline best practices for reporting and interpreting reliability coefficients. Common errors that researchers make are: (1) stating that the instruments are reliable; (2) incorrectly interpreting correlation coefficients;…

The fervent debate over the last 100 years about quantitative and qualitative research paradigms has resulted in a great divide between quantitative and qualitative researchers, who often view themselves as in competition with each other. This polarization has promoted "uni-researchers," researchers who restrict themselves exclusively to either…

The American Psychological Association Task Force recommended that researchers always report and interpret effect sizes for quantitative data. However, no such recommendation was made for qualitative data. The first objective of this paper is to provide a rationale for reporting and interpreting effect sizes in qualitative research. Arguments are…

This paper proposes a new typology for understanding common research errors that expands on the four types of error commonly discussed in the research literature. Examples are presented to illustrate Type I and Type II errors, errors related to the interpretation of statistically significant and nonsignificant results respectively, with attention…

This paper provides a framework for developing sampling designs in mixed methods research. First, we present sampling schemes that have been associated with quantitative and qualitative research. Second, we discuss sample size considerations and provide sample size recommendations for each of the major research designs for quantitative and…

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the development of research questions in mixed methods studies. First, we discuss the ways that the goal of the study, the research objective(s), and the research purpose shape the formation of research questions. Second, we compare and contrast quantitative research questions and qualitative research…