Table 2.
Examples of rationales for mixed-methods research.
| Gaining comprehensive understanding of the issue |
| Perspectives on EBN Strategies |
| “The mixed-methods design enabled us to get as complete a picture as possible.” (Strandberg et al., 2016: 7) |
| Development and Assessment of EBN Strategies |
| “The design was a concurrent mixed-methods design used to engender multiple perspectives about a complex phenomenon.” (Stoddart et al., 2012: 51) |
| Implementation or Evaluation of EBN Strategies |
| “Mixed-methods was the chosen design…to provide complementary insights…and to allow for data triangulation.” (Sawan et al., 2021: 716) |
| Used Qual to gain deeper understanding |
| Perspectives on EBN Strategies |
| “The qualitative findings were used to better understand and explain the quantitative results.” (Strandberg et al., 2014: 57) |
| Development and Assessment of EBN Strategies |
| “Focus groups allowed in depth exploration of experiences and promoted sharing and discussion of ideas.” (Griffiths et al., 2015: 466) |
| Implementation or Evaluation of EBN Strategies |
| “We utilized a mixed-methods design… to apply another lens for an in-depth investigation of facilitation.” (Dogherty et al., 2012:4) |
| Strengthen validity |
| Perspectives on EBN Strategies |
| “Reliability is facilitated by applied, structured, quantitative methods to qualitative data.” (Blackstone et al., 2017: 352) |
| Development and Assessment of EBN Strategies |
| “To ensure that our recommendations were applicable to current clinical practice, we… gathered robust data using several methods.” (Conway et al., 2014: 1050) |
| Implementation or Evaluation of EBN Strategies |
| “Triangulation of parent survey findings with… qualitative interviews increases the internal and external validity of the findings.” (Aventin et al., 2020: 14) |
| Unique rationale |
| Implementation or Evaluation of EBN Strategies |
| “Qualitative approaches can be used for several purposes before, during, and after a trial. Following the trial, collection and analysis of qualitative data can (a) assist investigators in exploring reasons why an intervention succeeded or failed; (b) explain variations in the effectiveness of the intervention; (c) examine the suitability of the theory used to guide the trial; and (d) generate additional questions and hypotheses.” (Ersek and Jablonski, 2014: 3) |