Mixed Methods

Mixed-method evaluation involves the planned use of two or more different kinds of empirical designs or data gathering and analysis tools in the same study or project. A substantial amount of contemporary evaluation practice routinely involves a variety of different kinds of methods—structured and unstructured, quantitative and qualitative, standardized and contextually responsive. Evaluators routinely use a variety of methods because the field now accepts the legitimacy of various methodological traditions and because diverse methods enable better understanding of the complex, multifaceted, real-world social phenomena evaluators aim to understand. What distinguishes mixed-method evaluation is thus the intentional or planned use of diverse methods for particular mixed-method purposes using particular mixed-method designs.

Methods are intentionally mixed in evaluation for purposes of (a) triangulation, or enhancing the validity or ...