Mixed Methods Research in Comparative and International Education: Philosophical and Methodological Considerations to Enhance Epistemological Pluralism

Mixed methods research (MMR) has been increasingly used in comparative and international education (CIE), but there is less scholarship that discusses the philosophical and methodological bases for such research. This article argues that much research in CIE assumes an ontologically complex and contingent reality and an interdisciplinary and pluralistic epistemology. MMR can offer a research approach that is pluralistic, but it requires reflexivity to consider the ontological and epistemological assumptions of such studies. The article discusses challenges in the field to engaging in pluralist and transdisciplinary research, and it puts forward a reflexive approach to integrating paradigms in MMR with a critical realist ontology and epistemology as a coherent pluralist approach. Finally, two examples of collaborative MMR illustrate how such studies do or do not engage with ontological assumptions and epistemological pluralism. These examples show reflexivity can be used to when doing MMR in the field.