This book advances a framework, a process, and compositional approaches for designing
qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research in the human and social sciences.
Increased interest in and use of qualitative research, the emergence of mixed methods
approaches, and continuing use of the traditional forms of quantitative designs have created a
need for this book’s unique comparison of the three approaches to inquiry. This comparison
begins with preliminary consideration of philosophical assumptions for all three approaches, a
review of the literature, an assessment of the use of theory in research designs, and reflections
about the importance of writing and ethics in scholarly inquiry. The book later addresses the
key elements of the process of research: writing an introduction, stating a purpose for the
study, identifying research questions and hypotheses, and advancing methods and procedures
for data collection and analysis. At each step in this process, the reader is taken through
qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches.