Triangulation and Mixed Methods Research

Abstract

Triangulation is a measurement technique often used by surveyors to locate an object in space by relying on two known points in order to ‘‘triangulate’’ on an unknown fixed point in that same space. Early on, social scientists borrowed the concept of triangulation to argue for its use in the validation process in assessing the veracity of social science research results. There are alternative perspectives on the use of triangulation that argue for its usefulness as a ‘‘dialectical’’ process whose goals seek a more in-depth nuanced understanding of research findings and clarifying disparate results by placing them in dialogue with one another. This special issue of the Journal of Mixed Methods Research (JMMR) analyzes and explores the variety of ways triangulation is used in mixed methods research and the range of issues and controversies surrounding triangulation praxis. To date, there are few scholarly in-depth discussions of its deployment in mixed methods research. The choice of triangulation as the topic for this first special issue of JMMR is based on the claims made by many scholars in the field that triangulation provides a justification for the use of mixed methods. The contributors to this volume raise many questions about the meaning of triangulation, its philosophical positioning in the mixed methods community, and strategies for using triangulation in the design of mixed methods studies, analysis and interpretation of data, and making visible subjugated voices. They take provocative positions, suggesting that qualitative, constructivist, and interpretive pathways provide greater potential for research to address the social good than has been possible using mixed methods approaches that are more closely aligned with the postpositivist paradigm. They revisit the ‘‘paradigm wars’’ and ask this question: Are we still stuck with the incompatibility thesis that paralyzed advances in mixed methods in past decades? They explore and critique the potential of alternative methodologies for harnessing the synergy that is said to lie in the application of mixed methods research designs by asking another set of questions: Have members of the mixed methods community done an injustice to pragmatism as a philosophical frame for mixed methods? Is qualitatively framed mixed methods the way forward? Is it possible that qualitatively framed mixed methods are better suited to the ability of mixed methods researchers to demonstrate a causal relationship between variables? How and when should triangulation be brought into mixed methods research to obtain a more nuanced

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