Integration in Mixed Methods Research Designs by Graduate Students at the University of Science and Technology

Abstract

This chapter reports on a study that investigated how graduate students in the Faculty of Communication and Information Science at NUST were approaching integration in their mixed-methods research dissertations. There has been a concern that lack of expertise of what mixed-methods research is restricts the integrative capacity. Using a research synthesis method, the study investigated three graduate programmes, namely Master's degrees in Library and Information Science, Records and Archives Management, and Journalism and Media Studies from 2016 up to 2018. A total of 95 dissertations were reviewed, and 40 employed mixed-methods research design. It was discovered that integration was commonly done at methods and interpretation levels. Integration of qualitative and quantitative data sets resulted in confirmation (83), expanding understanding (27), and discordance (31). Graduate students dealt with discordant findings by either ignoring the discordance (20), seek corroboration with existing literature (7), or give priority to the quantitative strand (4).