Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social and Behavioural Research. Tashakkori A, Teddlie C (eds). Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2003, pp.768,  77.00 ISBN: 0-7619-2073-0.

Abstract

As might be expected with a volume of this size, the chapters vary in quality.There is some repetition across the chapters, however, as most of the chapters are probably intended as stand alone pieces, this is inevitable to a point. The benefit of this is that for each chapter the definitions being used are made clear and the standpoint of the author made explicit, however, a more negative aspect is the resultant inconsistencies. The book does attempt to cover a range of viewpoints relating to the issue of mixed methods. Because of this there are inevitable contradictions across the chapters, in particular, in the ways in which some authors feel ‘mixing’ of methods is appropriate. For those using the text as a first port of call, this could be rather confusing. For example, in chapter 7 Janice Morse sets out her view that mixing methods is only appropriate if the methodological congruence of each component method is maintained and not ‘mix and match’ research in which strategies can be liberally selected and combined. However, this view can be contrasted with that, for example, of Johnson & Turner (chapter 11) who argue that using both open and closed questions within a questionnaire survey would be one way to mixed methods and others who suggest that data can be ‘transformed’, that is they can be either ‘quantitized’ or ‘qualitized’ accordingly (Onwuegbuzie & Teddlie, chapter 13). In this sense the novice reader could select to read only one or two chapters and be left with a biased and perhaps uncritical view of the mixed method approach. Whilst a range of standpoints are represented I was still left with a feeling that the book was slightly biased towards the more mix and match approach to mixed methods. Some key writers were missing from the list of contributors, notably Julia Brannen, Alan Bryman and Martin Hammersley—who have written excellent pieces on mixed methods in the past and I feel could have produced very good chapters perhaps resulting in a more balanced collection overall. A further criticism of the book is the overemphasis on ‘typologies’. The authors themselves in the final chapter state they have identified almost 40 types of mixed method designs and then go on to describe the framework for yet another typology, the usefulness of which could be questioned.