Improving the Quality of Mixed Research Reports in the Field of Human Resource Development and Beyond: A Call for Rigor as an Ethical Practice

• Date: 01 September 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21197
• Author: Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie,Julie A. Corrigan
• Published date: 01 September 2014

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 25, no. 3, Fall 2014 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21197 273

INVITED EDITORIAL

Improving the Quality of Mixed

Research Reports in the Field

of Human Resource Development

and Beyond: A Call for Rigor

as an Ethical Practice

Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie, Julie A. Corrigan

Since 2000, only 13% of the total number of empirical research articles

(n = 230) published in Human Resource Development Quarterly

(HRDQ) have represented mixed research studies. Plausible explanations

for why the HRDQ prevalence rate is not more than 13% include the

possibility that a high proportion of mixed research studies that are being

submitted to HDRQ are not of suffi cient quality to be accepted. Thus, in

this editorial, we provide evidence-based guidelines for conducting and

reporting mixed research that are framed around Collins, Onwuegbuzie,

and Sutton’s (2006) 13-step model of the mixed research process. Further,

we divide our reporting standards into four general areas—research

formulation, research planning, research implementation, and research

dissemination—that we itemize via a taxonomy that contains more than

60 elements.

Key Words: mixed methods research, mixed research, 13-step mixed

research process, prevalence rate studies, reporting standards, evidence-

based guidelines, guidelines for conducting and reporting mixed research,

research rigor

According to its website, Human Resource Development Quarterly (HRDQ), the

fi rst scholarly journal focused directly on the evolving fi eld of human resource

development (HRD), “recognizes the interdisciplinary nature of the HRD fi eld

and brings together relevant research from the related fi elds, such as econom-

ics, education, management, sociology, and psychology” (para 1). Because of

274 Onwuegbuzie, Corrigan

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq

its interdisciplinary and evolving nature—potentially combining fi elds that

have almost an exclusive tradition of conducting quantitative research (e.g.,

psychology) with fi elds that have more of a tradition of conducting qualitative

research (e.g., education)—the fi eld of HRD lends itself to the use of mixed

methods research. Broadly speaking, mixed methods research represents the

“class of research where the researcher mixes or combines quantitative and

qualitative research techniques, methods, approaches, concepts or language

into a single study” (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 17). Because this

research tradition involves more than mixing methods, a more appropriate

term for this tradition is mixed research (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, & Turner,

2007). Hence, for the remainder of this editorial, we will use the term mixed

research.

Since the publication of the first edition of the Handbook of Mixed

Methods in Social and Behavioral Research in 2003 (Tashakkori & Teddlie,

2003), the presence of mixed research studies in the published literature

has increased (Ivankova & Kawamura, 2010). Therefore, since this semi-

nal publication, several researchers (e.g., Alise & Teddlie, 2010; Powell,

Mihalas, Onwuegbuzie, Suldo, & Daley, 2008) have provided insights

into the use of mixed research across numerous fi elds via what Alise and

Teddlie (2010) refer to as prevalence rate studies (i.e., “a line of inquiry into

research methods in the social/behavioral sciences [referring to the pro-

portion of articles using a particular methodological approach]”, p. 104).

Building on the work of Hibbard and Onwuegbuzie (2012), we have iden-

tifi ed 25 prevalence rate studies wherein the prevalence of mixed research

studies across various fi elds or disciplines have been documented. All of

these prevalence rate studies have taken place since 2004. Interestingly,

the fi elds of education (Alise & Teddlie, 2010; Niglas, 2004) in general

and mathematics education (Hart, Smith, Swars, & Smith, 2009; Ross &

Onwuegbuzie, 2010, 2012, 2014) in particular consistently have had the

highest prevalence rates.

To date, the prevalence of mixed research studies representing the HRD

fi eld is unknown. As such, we conducted a content analysis of studies pub-

lished in HRDQ from 2000 to the fi rst edition of 2014—representing 13.25

years. The year 2000 was selected as the starting point because it marked the

beginning of what Denzin and Lincoln (2011) referred to as the methodologi-

cally contested present, which represented a period of confl ict and tension and

the emergence of a growing body of literature on paradigms and methods.

Specifi cally, we followed Neuendorf’s (2001) steps to conducting a content

analysis: (a) a theory and rationale, (b) conceptualization, (c) operational-

izations, (d) coding schemes, (e) sampling, (f) training and pilot reliability,

(g) coding, (h) fi nal reliability, and (i) tabulation and reporting. Neuendorf’s

(2001) method allowed for a systematic and quantitative research approach to

identifying the ways in which mixed research studies have been implemented

in the fi eld of HRD.