What is mixed-methods research outside academia?

An organisation gathered employee feedback through a company-wide survey and conducted some interviews. They also looked at the internal workforce data for additional context. So does that automatically make it mixed-methods research? Not necessarily, as using several methods doesn’t mean that the methods were mixed. What actually makes it mixed then?

It’s the integration and interdependence between different parts of the research. The parts need to connect to answer the same investigative question because if they remain separate, much of the distinctive value of mixed-methods research gets lost (Bazeley, 2024). Thus, the “mixed” part of mixed methods happens when there is a relationship between the methods. Just using more than one doesn’t make it a mixed-methods study if they remain disconnected. Now the next question is how the different methods can be integrated effectively.

One option is to repeat the same question in different ways, but each stage can also inform or shape the next. If quantitative research comes first, qualitative work may help investigate what could explain the findings. In contrast, if qualitative work comes first, it may help identify what should be measured or tested quantitatively (Kurtaliqi et al., 2024).

An example by Crissey (2025) shows how this can work in practice. After COVID-19, hybrid work meant that the organisation’s existing workplace survey was no longer meeting its needs. The researchers didn’t just rewrite the questionnaire, even though that may have been the easier option. They redesigned their survey programme using three stages. First, they used in-depth employee interviews to understand how work was actually being done and this helped them identify activities that needed to be measured later. Second, they used cognitive interviews to refine the survey questions. Third, they carried out a small-scale field test (similar to a pilot study) to assess how the survey performed and what needed to change before using it at scale. Here, one stage changed what the next stage was able to investigate.

This was just one example, but organisations really do need to understand people-related issues involving retention, change, workload, collaboration or employee experience. So mixed-methods research becomes useful outside academia when a question can’t be understood sufficiently through one form of evidence alone.

However, I think it’s important to mention that mixed-methods research doesn’t always mean better research. It can require more resources along with greater skill in designing and combining different methods. So it makes most sense when the research question really benefits from bringing those methods together.

References

Bazeley, P. (2024). Conceptualizing integration in mixed methods research. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 18(3), 225–234. https://doi.org/10.1177/15586898241253636

Crissey, S. (2025). A Mixed-Methods Approach to survey Program Development: A hybrid workplace example. Survey Practice, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.29115/sp-2025-0005

Kurtaliqi, F., Miltgen, C. L., Viglia, G., & Pantin-Sohier, G. (2024). Using advanced mixed methods approaches: Combining PLS-SEM and qualitative studies. Journal of Business Research, 172, 114464. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114464