Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches

Citation

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2023). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (6th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Chapter Summary

The sixth edition is about 290 pages in ten chapters, in two parts: Part I, Preliminary Considerations (Chapters 1–4), and Part II, Designing Research (Chapters 5–10). The publisher presents it as clear, concise instruction for designing research projects or writing a proposal, taking readers from reviewing the literature through writing a research question and hypothesis to designing the study, and addressing qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches at each step. Chapters 1 and 2 each begin with learning objectives and end with a summary, key terms, writing exercises and additional readings.

Chapter 1: The Selection of a Research Approach

The opening chapter defines the vocabulary used throughout: philosophical assumptions, research approach, research design and research methods. It presents a framework in which a researcher's philosophical worldview (postpositivist, constructivist, transformative or pragmatic) connects to a design (for example experiments and surveys, narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, case studies, or convergent, explanatory sequential, exploratory sequential and complex mixed methods designs) and to the methods of data collection, analysis and interpretation. It closes with criteria for choosing an approach: the research problem and questions, the researcher's personal experiences, and the audience.

Chapter 2: Review of the Literature

This chapter explains why a proposal needs a literature review and how to organise it differently for qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods studies. It then walks through the steps: choosing a topic, searching databases, judging the priority and quality of sources, abstracting studies, drawing a literature map, following the conventions of the APA style manual, and defining terms.

Chapter 3: The Use of Theory

A chapter on how theory enters a study. Its place in Part I, Preliminary Considerations, shows that the authors treat the use of theory as a decision to be made before the proposal itself is drafted.

Chapter 4: Writing Strategies and Ethical Considerations

The last chapter of Part I turns to the practice of writing a proposal and to the ethical issues a study must address.

Chapters 5–7: The Introduction; The Purpose Statement; Research Questions and Hypotheses

Part II opens with the front sections of a proposal. These chapters take the elements in turn: how to write the introduction to a study, how to write the purpose statement, and how to formulate research questions and hypotheses for each approach.

Chapters 8–10: Quantitative Methods; Qualitative Methods; Mixed Methods Procedures

The final three chapters cover the methods section of a proposal for each approach in turn, ending with the procedures for combining the two.

Key Concepts

Chapter 1: The Selection of a Research Approach

• Philosophical worldviews: the four stances (postpositivist, constructivist, transformative, pragmatic) that shape a researcher's choices.
• Research design: the type of inquiry within an approach, such as experiments, ethnography or a convergent mixed methods design.
• Criteria for selecting an approach: the problem, personal experience and audience.

Chapter 2: Review of the Literature

• Literature map: a diagram of how the studies on a topic relate to each other and to the planned study.
• Abstracting: summarising sources in a consistent form.
• Definition of terms: stating key terms for readers outside the field.

Chapters 3–10

• Theory, purpose statement, research questions and hypotheses: elements named in the contents list.
• Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods procedures: the three approaches whose methods sections close the book.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Organised around the proposal. The two-part structure follows the order in which a proposal or dissertation is written, so a reader can work through the book while drafting. One instructor quoted by the publisher values that it is "based around dissertation chapters."
• Three approaches side by side. Each topic is treated for qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods, which helps a student see what changes when the approach changes, as the literature review chapter does with separate structures for each.
• Built-in study aids. Chapters 1 and 2 show learning objectives, summaries, key-term lists, writing exercises and additional readings with short annotations.
• Updated edition. The publisher says the sixth edition follows the seventh edition of the APA Publication Manual, uses more inclusive language and reflects recent developments in mixed methods, with new examples.

Limitations

• A compact guide, not a methods text. The methods themselves are covered in three chapters of a book of about 290 pages, so data-collection techniques, statistical analysis and qualitative coding need other books.
• Tied to proposal writing and APA style. The material on style and structure follows APA conventions, so students in fields with other conventions must adapt it.
• Easy reading, harder substance. An instructor quoted by the publisher cautions that the author's easygoing cadence can mask the depth of the material. Students should not mistake the brisk format for a light treatment of the philosophy and design choices.

Where It Fits in the Course

Creswell and Creswell is the compact planning guide among the research methods books on this site. Babbie's The Practice of Social Research and Bryman's Social Research Methods are large textbooks that explain how each method works; Creswell is shorter and organised around deciding on an approach and writing it up. Walliman's Research Methods: The Basics is a still briefer introduction for a first project and can come before Creswell.

After this book, readers who have chosen an approach can go to a specialist text: Charmaz's Constructing Grounded Theory for a qualitative study built on that method, or Morgan and Winship's Counterfactuals and Causal Inference, a graduate textbook on causal inference from observational data, for quantitative work in that direction.

How to Use This Book

The book suits students at the stage of planning a thesis, dissertation or funded project, and anyone who has to justify a choice of approach. Familiarity with basic research vocabulary helps; the chapters define their own terms.

• Core: Chapter 1 to choose and justify an approach; Chapters 5–7 to draft the introduction, purpose statement and questions; then the methods chapter that matches the study (Chapter 8, 9 or 10).
• Supporting: Chapters 2–4 when writing the literature review, theory section and ethics statement.
• Practice: complete the writing exercises at the end of each chapter on your own topic, so that by Chapter 10 a draft proposal exists.
• Pairing: use a full methods text, such as Bryman, for the technique detail that the methods chapters summarise.