6 Evidence Appraisal: Research 121
Type Source Focus
Grounded theory Sociology, psychology Examines the basic social
and psychological problems/
concerns that characterize real-
world phenomena
Phenomenology Philosophy Examines the lived experience
of the person
Narrative inquiry Philosophy Examines the story a participant
tells
Case study Describes an in-depth,
comprehensive study of a case
Mixed-Methods Research
Because qualitative and quantitative research designs are complementary, many
studies use a combination of both. Mixed-methods research often provides a
more complete understanding than either quantitative or qualitative methodol-
ogy used independently. As with quantitative and qualitative methods, there
are different designs within mixed methods. The most common mixed-method
designs used in nursing research are convergent parallel, explanatory sequential,
exploratory sequential, and multiphasic (see Table 6.6 on page 124) (Beck &
Harrison, 2016).
Convergent parallel is a mixed-method research design in which the quantitative
and qualitative data are collected concurrently and both types of data are pri-
oritized equally. Data are analyzed independently and then merged to provide a
more complete understanding of the data (Creswell, 2014).
