多层混合法研究设计:挑战与优势

Multi-level Mixed Methods Research Designs:Challenges and Advantages

与目前运用单一方法的研究相比,多层混合法研究作为一种重要的研究范式,其研究结果可能因更严谨可靠而对政策和实践产生更大的影响。运用多层混合法不仅需要提升研究者的技术能力,还需要转变他们的思维方式。对大多数研究者来说,这可能是一个极大的挑战。当然,这并不是说所有的研究都应该寻求对他人的直接影响;相反,研究的目的各有不同。尽管如此,不同研究领域的研究者一致认为,教师课堂内外赖以生存的社会环境的生态具有不可预测性。对一项在英格兰实施的研究项目进行剖析,探讨多层混合法在教育研究中的应用,发现与单视角的量化研究、元分析或者纯质性研究相比,多层混合法可能提供更微妙的、更细颗粒度的、更严谨可信的、基于循证的领导力研究,从而更为全面地揭示校长如何通过领导力角色、领导行为实现并且保持学校的可持续发展。

Compared with single method research,multi-level mixed methods(MLMM)are an essential means by which researchers’ findings are likely to be more robust and more credible,and therefore more likely to influence a broader swathe of policy and practice. It suggests,however,that to use MLMM requires not only the expansion of researchers’ technical skills but also a different way of thinking. For most researchers,this may represent a significant challenge. In suggesting this,it does not assume that all research should seek to influence others directly. On the contrary,there are a range of research purposes. However,researchers in different fields recognize the unpredictability of the ecologies of the social worlds which teachers inhabit inside and outside their classrooms. According to a research programme conducted in England,the multi-level mixed methods used in educational research are likely to provide more nuanced,finer-grained,more robust and more credible evidence-based understandings of the leadership roles and behaviours of principals who achieve and sustain educational outcomes in schools than single lens quantitative analyses,meta-analyses,or purely qualitative approaches.