Mixed methods in public administration: advantages and challenges

Understanding when and how mixed methods (MMs) have been and should be employed in public administration research has recently attracted scholarly attention (Hendren et al., 2018; Honig, 2019; Mele and Belardinelli, 2019). These methodological stock-taking exer-cises conclude that the public administration literature has been increasingly receptive to the adoption of MMs and that scholars in our field are familiar with the vast repertoire of mixed methods designs available. A systematic review conducted by Mele and Belardinelli (2019) indicates that, out of the 104 primary studies included in the review: 38 per cent of the studies adopted a sequential explanatory design, 31 per cent a parallel design, 29 per cent a sequential exploratory design, and the remaining 4 per cent a hybrid combination of MMs. While this variety signals maturity in the selection of methods, the study also argues that mixed methods in public administration could further unleash their potential if scholars were more precise and explicit in their combination of methods. Furthermore, issues that are still considered quite problematic include the adequate comparison or integration of the results obtained through the separate research processes and the fact that some works relegate to the background some of the evidence collected. This is often the fate of the data resulting from interviews, the method most frequently combined with another. In a similar vein, Hendren et al. (2018, p.912) call for a “dedicated effort to improve the qualitative component of mixed methods studies, and greater attention to integrating the qualitative and quantitative components of mixed methods studies”. The purpose of this chapter is to stimulate the debate on MMs in our field and to nail down the advantages and challenges of this approach. After framing MMs as a research approach that serves the purpose of a pragmatic discipline, we offer a classification of MM designs, identifying some challenges as well as their specific advantages. We then provide examples and guidance through the analysis of three illustrative studies.