A brief measure of attitudes toward mixed methods research in psychology

Abstract

The adoption of mixed methods research in psychology has trailed behind other social science disciplines. Teaching psychology students, academics, and practitioners about mixed methodologies may increase the use of mixed methods within the discipline. However, tailoring and evaluating education and training in mixed methodologies requires an understanding of, and way of measuring, attitudes toward mixed methods research in psychology. To date, no such measure exists. In this article we present the development and initial validation of a new measure: Attitudes toward Mixed Methods Research in Psychology. A pool of 42 items developed from previous qualitative research on attitudes toward mixed methods research along with validation measures was administered via an online survey to a convenience sample of 274 psychology students, academics and psychologists. Principal axis factoring with varimax rotation on a subset of the sample produced a four-factor, 12-item solution. Confirmatory factor analysis on a separate subset of the sample indicated that a higher order four factor model provided the best fit to the data. The four factors; ‘Limited Exposure,’ ‘(in)Compatibility,’ ‘Validity,’ and ‘Tokenistic Qualitative Component’; each have acceptable internal reliability. Known groups validity analyses based on preferred research orientation and self-rated mixed methods research skills, and convergent and divergent validity analyses based on measures of attitudes toward psychology as a science and scientist and practitioner orientation, provide initial validation of the measure. This brief, internally reliable measure can be used in assessing attitudes toward mixed methods research in psychology, measuring change in attitudes as part of the evaluation of mixed methods education, and in larger research programs.

Exploring ethical issues associated with using online surveys in educational research

“…This removes the potential for perceived coercion where the lecturer is asking the student to participate in his/her own research. In the first author's previous research on online discussion boardseducational survey research (Roberts & Forman, 2014;Roberts & Povee, 2014a, 2014bRoberts & Rajah-Kanagasabai, 2013) students were recruited though an undergraduate psychology participant pool and received research credit for participating. Participation was voluntary and students could elect to take part in other studies or complete alternative written activities.…”

Reliability and validity of the attitude towards research scale for a sample of industrial psychology students

“…In the past, it seems that researchers tended to use context-specific measures of students’ ATR in, for instance, music (Dorfman & Lipscomb, 2005), nursing (Halabi & Hamdan-Mansour, 2010; Mehrdad, Salsali, & Kazemnejad, 2008), medical school (Siemens, Punnen, Wong, & Kanji, 2010), education (Ozturk, 2011), or agriculture (Rezaei & Zamani-Miandashti, 2013). Some measures have been developed to investigate students’ attitude towards specific research approaches like qualitative research (Roberts & Povee, 2014b) or mixed methods research (Roberts & Povee, 2014a). Papanastasiou (2005), however, developed a scale that measures ATR in general as a multidimensional construct consisting of five factors, namely the degree to which students regard research as useful for their profession, deem it to be relevant to their life in general, demonstrate positive attitudes towards it, experience anxiety about it, and find research methodology difficult.…”

Observation of Interactions in Adolescent Group Therapy: A Mixed Methods Study

“…Despite the dearth of publications in the last decade, there are encouraging signs of a growing interest in the use of mixed-methods research in psychology (Roberts and Povee, 2014). By integrating complementary perspectives derived from quantitative and qualitative methods and analyses, mixed-methods research offers both rigor and flexibility and is likely to see an increase in future years (Anguera and Hernández-Mendo, 2016).…”

“…In pyschotherapy research, there is growing concern for integrating qualitative methods, which provide a more holistic view of the person, and quantitative methods, which seek to provide a more objective view (Lutz and Hill, 2009 ). Despite the dearth of publications in the last decade, there are encouraging signs of a growing interest in the use of mixed-methods research in psychology (Roberts and Povee, 2014 ). By integrating complementary perspectives derived from quantitative and qualitative methods and analyses, mixed-methods research offers both rigor and flexibility and is likely to see an increase in future years (Anguera and Hernández-Mendo, 2016 ).…”