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Exemplary Mixed Methods Research StudiesCompiled by the Mixed Methods Working GroupFunding provided by the Spencer Foundation*Our group addressed key features of successful mixed methods research; challenges of proposingand conducting such research; ways to address such challenges; training in mixed methodsresearch; and issues of funding and publishing such work. To focus our discussion, we drew onexamples of exemplary mixed methods research suggested by all members of the MMWG.Group members were asked to annotate these resources with the following questions in mind: (1)How were methods mixed in this study? (2) Why was mixing methods vital to the study?*The ideas expressed in this document are those of the Mixed Methods Working Group and notthose of the Spencer Foundation or any other agency that funded the work reported here.1

Table of ContentsPage 5Alexander, J., D Entwisle, and L. Olson (2014). The long shadow: Family background,disadvantaged urban youth, and the transition to adulthood. A Volume in the AmericanSociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology. Russell Sage Foundation. NewYork.Page 6Bartlett, L. & Vavrus, F. (2014). Transversing the vertical case study: A methodologicalapproach to studies of educational policy as practice. Anthropology and EducationQuarterly, 45(2), 131-147.Page 7Bernheimer, Lucinda P. & Weisner, Thomas S. (2007) "Let me just tell you what I do all day.".The family story at the center of intervention research and practice. Infants & YoungChildren, 20(3), 192-201.Page 8Boaler, J. & Staples M. Creating mathematical futures through an equitable teaching approach:The case of Railside School. Teachers College Record, 208(110) 608–645.Page 9DeLuca, S., & Rosenblatt, P. (2010). Does moving to better neighborhoods lead to betterschooling opportunities? Parental school choice in an experimental housing voucherprogram. The Teachers College Record, 112(5), 7-8.Page 10Duncan, G. J., Huston, A. C., & Weisner, T. S. (2007). Higher ground: New hope for theworking poor and their children. Russell Sage Foundation.Page 11Heinrich, C.J., Burch, P., Good, A., Acosta, R., Cheng, H., Dillender, M., Kirshbaum, C., Nisar,H., and Stewart, M. (2014). Improving the implementation and effectiveness of out-ofschool-time tutoring. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 33(2), 471-494.Page 12Hill, H. C., Kapitula, L., & Umland, K. (2011). A validity argument approach to evaluatingteacher value-added scores. American Educational Research Journal, 48(3), 794-831.Page 132

Holland, D. & Skinner, D. (1987). Prestige and intimacy: The cultural models behindAmericans’ talk about gender types. In D. Holland & N. Quinn (Eds.), Cultural modelsin language and thought (pp. 78-111). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Pages 14 and 15Kim, K.H. (2014). Community-involved learning to expand possibilities for vulnerable children:A critical communicative, Sen’s capability, and action research approach. Journal ofMixed Methods Research, 8, 308–316.Page 17LeVine, R. A, LeVine, S., Schnell-Anzola, B., Rowe, M., & Dexter, E. (2012). Literacy andmothering: How women's schooling changed the lives of the world's children. New York,Oxford.Page 18Oliver, M. and T.M. Shapiro (2006). Black wealth/white wealth: A new perspective on racialinequality. New York. Routledge.Page 19Penuel, W. R., Riel, M., Krause, A., & Frank, K. A. (2009). Analyzing teachers' professionalinteractions in a school as social capital: A social network approach. Teachers CollegeRecord, 111(1), 124-163.Page 20Poteete, Amy R.; Janssen, Marco A.; Ostrom, Elinor (2010). Working together: Collectiveaction, the commons, and multiple methods in practice. Princeton University Press.Page 22Ream, R.K. (2003). Counterfeit social capital and Mexican American underachievement.Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 25(3), 237-262.Page 23Study of Instructional Improvement (SII), as described in:Rowan, B., & Correnti, R. (2009). Studying reading instruction with teacher logs: Lessons fromthe study of instructional improvement. Educational Researcher, 38(2), 120-131.Page 24Rumbaut, Rubén G., (2005). Sites of belonging: Acculturation, discrimination, and ethnicidentity among children of immigrants (2005). In Thomas S. Weiner (Ed.), Discoveringsuccessful pathways in children’s development: Mixed methods in the study of childhoodand family life (pp. 111-164). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Page 253

Weisner, Thomas S. (2011). “If you work in this country you should not be poor, and your kidsshould be doing better”: Bringing mixed methods and theory in psychologicalanthropology to improve research in policy and practice. ETHOS, 39(4), 455-476.4

Alexander, J., D Entwisle, and L. Olson (2014). The long shadow: Family background,disadvantaged urban youth, and the transition to adulthood. A Volume in the AmericanSociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology. Russell Sage Foundation. NewYork.This volume expands our understanding of the ways in which, and extent to which, social andinstitutional contexts (e.g., family, neighborhood, school) have long-term consequences for thelives of disadvantaged youth. Authors consider outcomes such as educational attainment,occupation, income, family formation, and “problem behaviors” such as substance abuse andencounters with the law, among others. They additionally give attention to the ways in which,and extent to which, urban youth of low-income background enhance their status via institutionsnoted above.To accomplish this, authors draw upon data collected as part of the Baltimore Beginning SchoolStudy Youth Panel (BSSYP), a probability sample of approximately 800 urban youth who startedschool in Baltimore in 1982 and grew to maturity in the latter decades of the twentieth centuryand first decade of the twenty-first century. Through repeated surveys of students, teachers andparents, authors detail student progress from Grade 1 to age 28-29. The Long Shadow focuses onthe Youth Panel’s social mobility, with specific attention on those of low socioeconomic status.Although sociologists have been attentive to social context, they have focused mainly on olderyouth. Most stratification studies take secondary school as a starting point rather than looking atthe full complement of experiences from early schooling and beyond. The Alexander et al. studyspans close to a quarter century, chronicling life experiences and outcomes until close to age 30.Important findings include, among others, the life experiences of the children of poor Whites,and the contrasting experiences of poor African Americans, particularly African American men.How methods are mixedThe Youth Panel study began in Fall 1982 when sampled students were beginning Grade 1 inBaltimore public schools. Using a probability sample, schools and children were selected in twostages. To begin with, Baltimore public schools were classified with regard to racial/ethniccomposition (segregated White; segregated Black; relatively racially mixed) and neighborhoodSES (white collar, blue collar). Twenty schools were randomly selected from among the sixabove noted types. First time, first grade students were then randomly selected for inclusion inthe study via classroom rosters. 790 students comprised the initial sample. Two-thirds of thesample fell into the low-income category, with the remaining third being of higher SES relativeto all other students, although not objectively of high SES. In addition, interviews wereconducted with students, in which members of the sample were asked to reflect on their yearsgrowing up and to speculate on their anticipated futures. Student participants were interviewedup to twenty times through high school and twice after high school. Teachers and parents ofparticipants were also interviewed, with parents interviewed up to eleven times over the courseof the study. Teachers were interviewed up to nine times from Grade 1 to Grade 9.Why mixing methods was vital for the study5

The survey data and analyses provide the backdrop for ongoing interviews. Although theinterview data “breathe life” into some of the institutional processes that lie at the center of thisanalysis, most of the volume focuses on the quantitative portion of the study, with the qualitativedata enabling insight into how these processes work on a day to day and year by year basis fromthe perspective of sampled students, parents and teachers.--Lois WeisBartlett, L. & Vavrus, F. (2014). Transversing the vertical case study: A methodologicalapproach to studies of educational policy as practice. Anthropology and EducationQuarterly, 45(2), 131-147.How methods are mixedThis article proposes a methodological approach, the “vertical case study,” for researching theproduction and circulation of social phenomena, such as educational policies. The authors wereespecially interested in understanding how educational policies, originating in a particular timeand place, spread out from there to be taken up, implemented, and appropriated elsewhere. Theywanted a method for expanding the reach of educational policy studies by following the courseof policies across scales, spaces, and times. To this end, the vertical case study requires data thatcan be analyzed in three cross-cutting ways: the “vertical” which attends to the local, national,and global domains in which a policy is produced and circulates (scale); the “horizontal” whichattends to how a policy takes shape and is implemented in distinct locations simultaneously(space); and the “transversal” which attends to how a policy is historically situated andappropriated over time (time). With a focus on policies related to learner-centered pedagogy(originating in the US and UK) and adopted in Tanzania, the authors collected historical andcontemporary documents (education and language policy statements, professional developmentmaterials, curricula, tests), conducted participant observation and interviews in six schools inTanzania, used highly structured observation protocols, held structured focus groups, andconducted structured interviews. They used critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the documentsto reveal policy themes, contradictions, and changes over time; they used school documents,field notes and unstructured interviews to identify themes in the social, cultural and materialconditions at the six schools; they used the structured observation schedule to capture evidenceof learner-centered pedagogy in each classroom; and they used structured interviews to captureteachers’ thoughts about their own pedagogical practices, knowledge and views of learnercentered pedagogy, and professional experiences. Combining the findings from these diversedata collection and analysis methods, the authors demonstrated the multiple ways a specificteaching and learning approach, popularized in the US and UK in the 1970s, was taken up,simplified, and spread to another nation and into its local educational contexts over time.Why mixing methods was vital for the studyThe results of this study reveal relationships and interconnections across scales, spaces, andtimes not usually possible with conventional case study designs. For the most part, individualcase studies, ethnographies, and comparative studies do not reveal how educational policies carry6

power and influence from one part of the world to another or reorganize educational practices indispersed locales and across time.-Margaret EisenhartBernheimer, Lucinda P. & Weisner, Thomas S. (2007) "Let me just tell you what I do all day.".The family story at the center of intervention research and practice. Infants & YoungChildren, 20(3), 192-201.How methods are mixedThe CHILD project used normed child assessments, surveys and questionnaires, and teacherratings, as well as qualitative fieldwork, including conversational parent interviews, fieldnotes byfield visitors, and home observations in a longitudinal 16-year study of 100 Los Angeles areafamilies with children with generalized developmental delays of various kinds. Children andtheir families were followed from first visits at child ages 3-4, through adolescence. Parentsdescribed their struggles raising their children with disabilities, and these interviews led to anumber of useful constructs that distinguished different family accommodation patterns. TheEcocultural Family Interview (EFI), a conversational, qualitative method, asks parents aboutthese processes. The integration of methods led to new constructs which were then assessedthrough quantitative coding of qualitative data, and the creation of scales used in familyinterviews and visits. Professionals who ask parents about everyday life with a child withdisabilities can plan and implement interventions that will better support the family's dailyroutine. No intervention will have an impact if it cannot find a slot in the daily routines of anorganization, family, or individual. The nature of the child’s disability and the family andcommunity care system need to be considered together.Why mixing methods was vital for the studyQualitative family research can discover new concepts and terms family members use thatcrystallize important dimensions of their lives. Mixed methods led to the development of newconstructs for understanding families with children with disabilities. We followed 102 familieswith children with disabilities for 15 years, listening to their descriptions of their daily lives. Amajor theme running through all the stories was accommodation—changes made or intentionallynot made to the family's daily routine of activities due, at least in part, to their child withdisabilities. Accommodations are usually adaptations to everyday routines, not responses tostress; are responsive to how children impact parents' daily routine, not to children's test scores;are related to parents' differing goals and values; do not fit a single script or model for what isgood or bad parenting; and predict family sustainability of daily routines, rather than childoutcomes. Accommodations can and do change—so interventions can indeed find their places indaily routines. The practitioner participates in this "conversation" between the social structuralconstraints and opportunities of families and communities, the beliefs and values of parents, andthe contributions of the intervention.Families in the study face a familiar and daunting task. They have to re-balance their family livesto accommodate to their child with disabilities. Accommodation refers to the process of decidingwhat activities to do and which not to do given there is a child with disabilities in the family.7

Accommodation differs from coping with stressors and adaptation, however. It occurs with alllevels of stress and responds to perturbations due in part to the child with disabilities, affectingthe normal family daily routine. "Look, let me just tell you what I do all day to keep our familytogether, all day, then we can talk about supports and stress scales," one mother commented.Parents frequently used the everyday term, hassle; their child was more or less a hassle for them.This is not a pejorative term in parents’ everyday use but rather a practical description of theextent of disruption in the flow of the functional daily routine of activities due at least in part tothe child with disabilities. We developed a scale measuring hassle, which then proved valuable inpredicting family support and sustainability. Another outcome measure that emerged from thiswork is sustainability of the family routine, which refers to the attainment of family goalsconsistent with the moral direction of their lives, as well as the more pragmatic balancing ofresources and time. Not only parents could describe these circumstances; many adolescents withdisabilities themselves, followed since they were age three or four, could provide a reasonableexplanatory model of their own illness and sense of difference; "I speak a different dialect fromother people," is how one boy described this. A scale for adolescent self-construal wasdeveloped from these narratives. This was the first study to ask teens directly about their selfconstrual and explanations of their disability.The EFI narratives were summarized and systematically rated along a series of dimensionsinformed by what parents described to us and by theory from family ecology and research ondisability. These quantitative ratings, derived from qualitative interviews and home visits wereused along with quantitative family assessment scales to predict child and family outcomes. EFIderived ratings added significant predictive ability to measures of family functioning, comparedto quantitative family assessment scales alone.-Thomas S. WeisnerBoaler, J. & Staples M. Creating mathematical futures through an equitable teaching approach:The case of Railside School. Teachers College Record, 208(110) 608–645.How methods are mixedThis paper reports a five-year longitudinal study of 700 students as they progressed throughmathematics classes in three high schools. The authors had initial indications that one of thesehigh schools was more effective in terms of 1) gains in students’ mathematics achievement, 2)reducing achievement gaps, and 3) students’ attitudes towards mathematics, the number ofmathematics courses that students elected to take, and proportion of students who planned to takemathematics in college. The purpose of the study was to identify sources of this school’ssuccess. The analysis of student assessment and student survey data confirmed that theachievement gains of students in this school were greater and that the students had more positiveattitudes towards. The analysis of observational data and of artifacts revealed that mathematicsteachers in this school worked more collaboratively than those in the other two schools, and thatthe mathematics curriculum was organized around central mathematical ideas and was morecoherent and less fragmented than those in the other two schools. The research team comparedthe mathematical pedagogy in the three schools by coding 600 hours of classroom video8

recordings for 1) the types of activities in which students engaged (individual work, group work,etc.), and 2) the frequency and level of rigor of teachers’ questions. In addition, they conductedcase studies of several teachers in each school that focused on teacher moves that shapedstudents’ engagement with mathematics. The findings indicate that teachers in the moresuccessful school consistently used group work to a greater extent and that they employedstrategies to make group work effective that included 1) maintaining the level of rigor ofmathematical tasks throughout lessons, 2) pressing students to justify their mathematicalreasoning, and 3) positioning students as mathematically competent. Boaler and Staplesconcluded that although the curriculum played a part in the school’s success, it was an elementof only one part of a complex system that encompassed the organization of the mathematicsdepartment and shared instructional routines.Why mixing methods was vital for the studyThe analysis of student assessment and data confirmed that one school was significantly moresuccessful and thus that there was something worth explaining. However, Boaler and Stapleswere hampered by the lack of appropriate instruments for assessing the quality of classroommathematics instruction (promising instruments are now available). Their coding of classroomvideo-recordings revealed that the mathematics teachers in the more successful school allocateda greater proportion of instructional time to group work and that they asked higher levelquestions. The qualitative cases studies of the instruction of several teachers in each schoolenabled them to clarify how teachers in the more successful school made group work effectiveby enacting specific instructional routines. In addition, the qualitative analysis of the curriculaand the mathematics d

Exemplary Mixed Methods Research Studies Compiled by the Mixed Methods Working Group Funding provided by the Spencer Foundation* Our group addressed key features of successful mixed methods research; challenges of proposing and conducting such research; ways to address such challenges; training in mixed methods

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