Quality frameworks and procedural checklists for mixed methods research

Procedural checklists and quality frameworks for research are very useful pedagogic tools for teaching new researchers foundational aspects of research process and final product reporting. They are also very helpful to established researchers in assisting with the review of research papers and articles submitted to conferences and journals as well as for the examination of research dissertations. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of research quality criteria in quantitative and qualitative research before presenting a synthesis of quality frameworks and procedural checklists emerging from the field of mixed methods research. Cameron (2010) studied the methodological incidence of research approaches utilised in Australian vocational education and training (VET) based research and found that qualitative (45%) and mixed methods research (15%) were dominant. The recent development of mixed methods research quality frameworks is presented and compared to those used in quantitative and qualitative research paradigms. The quality frameworks emerging from the mixed methods research movement include: a set of four criteria developed by Sale and Brazil (2004); quality prompts from Bryman, Becker and Sempik (2008) and; a six item framework developed by O’Cathain, Murphy and Nicholl (2008) referred to as, Good Reporting of a Mixed Methods Study (GRAMMS). The paper concludes with some future projections on research training for new VET researchers.