Coherence and Interdisciplinarity

Mixed methods research

During her talk, Mariah A. Knowles, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, raised some questions and provided advice for different methodological and justificatory concerns that can arise in the course of interdisciplinary research. The focal point of her investigation is that there are many ways for telling the same story, so why must ours have to be the right one?

She presented the mixed methods approach as a hybrid of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies that can leverage the benefits of each of these two worlds. It can be used for telling qualitative narratives guided by quantitative features. But again, why is this way of telling stories right? Mariah raised the necessity of going back to analyse how we justify each step in our research investigation.

In this framework, the problem of defining the coherence of a study emerges along with the fact that coherence itself strongly depends on our stance as researchers. We can imagine coherence as a system of beliefs defined as coherent by a group of people when they agree on the beliefs - so they mutually support one another. But this auto-referential system can lead to errors of judgement and bias: for this reason the importance of developing universal criteria for evaluating the quality of research work.

All scientists struggle with finding the right way to bridge qualitative and quantitative research. What is your experience? Share with us your methods on Twitter or Slack!