Theme 3

Mixed research and online learning. What’s the connection? When I read the article by Lowenthal, P. R. & Leech, N I don’t feel like they have connected the two subjects enough. It is interesting reading about what mixed research is and the good and the bad things about it, but I don’t feel like they say why it is needed especially in online learning. The only thing they say is that today it is a mono-method, and they want mixed research. It is though really interesting to read this article, because I think it shows pretty good how the world of research works. This is a way for them to enter their say into the debate about how to make the research about online learning better and trying to perform a paradigm-shift in the way research should be made. It is also a way for them do talk about the paradigm wars and propose a way to make peace in that war.

Mixed research is a very interesting way of research and personally I think it is a very good way. I think if it is used right it will be a good way to broaden your research and a good way to make sure that you cover your area of research even better.  There are though some obvious problems. Quantitative and qualitative research is like two different genres, and to combine them you’ll have to be able to use both. It is like the sport Nordic Combined when the athletes compete in both ski jumping and cross-country skiing in the same competition. It is not enough if you are the best in one of the sports, you have to be able to do well in both.

One interesting problem with mixed research is how you describe your methods use. Lowenthal, P. R. & Leech, N talks about this problem and how it may be hard to duplicate a mixed research work. But if you can use this method, it is good. But you get the hard part of both the quantitative method and the qualitative, so you must be careful when you choose.

“Emotions, then, are a double-edged sword that may help or hinder learning” is a great quote from the other article by Cleveland-Innes, M. & Campbell P that shows the essence of what this, according to me, quantitative research on online learning looks at. Would this research be better if it had used mixed research methods then? I actually don’t think so, because this article was successful showing that emotions is present in online learning and that it can be positive or negative. That short statement is the answer to a good quantitative question. A mixed research would have been bigger and more complex. Maybe it would have given more answers to question about how to use this knowledge that emotions exists, but now they propose this on future work.

What I have learned here is that mixed research can be used, but one should be very careful when using it, since there is a possibility that the research will be incomplete instead of better. It is easy to lose vital parts instead of finding new extra possibilities. And for us students, it can be interesting to use the mix, but we need to be good at both qualitative and quantitative research first, and then we can start to use sciences answer to Nordic combination.