ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the merits of selecting mixed-methods design for disaster and emergency management research so that researchers might consider them as appropriate avenues for research. A paradigm is merely a lens through which a person views the world. In science, paradigms include the rules under which researchers operate as they undertake their approaches to scientific inquiry. Through the years, many prominent researchers have outlined various paradigms that form the basis of current social scientific inquiry. In contrast, post-positivists believe that causes most likely determine the effects or outcomes of a particular phenomenon. For more than a century, advocates of qualitative and quantitative research have engaged in a long-lasting dispute. The primary philosophy today of mixed research is pragmatism. The growth of pragmatism allows researchers to incorporate the strengths of both paradigms and respective methodologies.
