2.3 Mixed methods in construction management research
A research methodology is a philosophical structure and crucial suppositions directing the research. It covers the particular strategies of data collection and analysis. Research methods involve qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method. A mixed-method is a way to deal with the request that joins the remarkable procedure and strategies for both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Mixed methods research is officially characterized as the class of exploration where the specialist blends or joins quantitative and subjective examination procedures, techniques, approaches, ideas, or language into a solitary report (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie, 2004). Mixed methods consolidate the qualities and resolve the weaknesses of qualitative and quantitative research. For instance, quantitative research has been known to give a portrayal of one particular moment and don’t catch how perspectives and qualities may change over the long run.
Moreover, the method has impediments of expecting respondents to accommodate their responses inside a restricted scope of replies. As far as strength, subjective technique empowers the perception of peculiarities in their regular setting. As indicated by Aramo-Immonen (2013), mixed methods designs give researchers, across research disciplines, a thorough way to deal with responding to research questions. Caruth (2013) added that mixed methods can add insight and understanding that may be missed when only a single research design is utilized. This infers that mixed methods give more exhaustive proof to concentrating on an exploration issue. Additionally, with mixed methods, a comprehensive comprehension of the peculiarity can undoubtedly be developed by combining the inductive and rational information got in the epistemological interaction. Also, in mixed methods, the aftereffects of the two informational indexes go about as cushion and a check against exaggerating the case for ends got from either approach alone.
No matter what the advantages of mixed methods are, research methods should be chosen in light of the research question, the quality expected (where the qualities of both qualitative and quantitative methods are capitalized on to work on the dependability of the examination result), the subtleties and intricacies of the peculiarity being investigated, the profundity of comprehension required, and research setting. Notwithstanding, the reception of mixed methods by construction management researchers has been educated by the intricacy and profundity of comprehension needed by the greater part of the construction management phenomenon. The utilization of mixed methods has been very much reported in the construction management literature (Bowen et al., 2012; Korkmaz et al., 2011; Gilbert et al., 2017; Ebekozien, 2019; Ostadalimakhmalbaf et al., 2019). This demonstrates that mixed methods are suitable for most research problems in construction management research, particularly theory-building research. With mixed methods, construction management researchers can assemble theories, sum up the theories to different populaces, profoundly comprehend the unique collaboration and view of the partners associated with the peculiarity, clarify and comprehend human conduct, and produce reciprocal bits of knowledge.
Mixed methods cannot be attempted without a research design. A research design addresses the activities of a researcher in a given research method. Mixed methods research design incorporate (i) exploratory sequential design (a mixed-method research design where qualitative data are gathered and utilized as a correlative variable in deciphering and upgrading discoveries from quantitative data), (ii) explanatory sequential design (where qualitative data are gathered to verify and develop quantitative information and to help improved quantitative information. quantitative and qualitative data will be gathered and deciphered independently while results will be coordinated after translation of discoveries), (iii) convergent concurrent design, (iv) concurrent triangulation design (qualitative and quantitative data, in general, have similar weight during the integration phase and they are gathered at the same time to cover each other’s shortcomings), (v) concurrent nested design (qualitative and quantitative data are gathered simultaneously and analysis of types of data will occur together), and (vi) concurrent transformative design (quantitative and qualitative data are gathered simultaneously and mixed during analysis phase)(Guest, 2012; Alavi and Habek, 2016; Leech and Onwuegbuzie, 2009; Schoonenboom and Johnson, 2017).
Proposed paradigm and methodology: Confirmatory sequential research design
This method is a variation of exploratory sequential research design. It was created by drawing upon the attributes of exploratory sequential research design and the realities of the construction industry to advance the comprehension of the fact of construction management practices according to the points of view of the experts in the sector. Not at all like the exploratory sequential research design; confirmatory sequential design presents a full strategy for mixing the discoveries of qualitative and quantitative analysis. Discoveries are not mixed at the interpretation phase, however, mixed systematically through theory formulation. This builds up the requirement for GT in confirmatory sequential research design. The time direction for the design is not simultaneous but consecutive, where qualitative data collection and analysis go before the quantitative part. In this design, the status or level of priority of qualitative and quantitative methods is not an issue. None dominates the other, yet equivalent status or need is offered to both methods. The ideal paradigm for this method is pragmatism. This is on the grounds that the method is a research design method within mixed methods.
The proposed confirmatory sequential research design includes five successive stages: (i) theory building, (ii) first stage theory confirmation, (iii) second stage theory confirmation, and (iv) revision of the theory. These steps are displayed in Figure 1. Figure 1 shows several arrows leading from steps 1 to steps 2, 3, and 4 demonstrate that the research design includes a cyclical and interactional process of building and confirming theories. It is a staggering research plan that efficiently incorporates or blends the discoveries of both qualitative and quantitative methods. Every one of the stages should occur inside a single study.