ABSTRACT
As the term is widely used today, mixed methods involves a combination of quantitative and qualitative data gathering and/or analysis within the same study. Although there are exceptions, there is a marked correlation between how data are collected and how they are analyzed. A conventional questionnaire with fixed response alternatives, for example, will ordinarily be analyzed quantitatively while the data generated by a participant-observation field study will typically be analyzed qualitatively. Multi-methods , by contrast, involves any two (or more) methods of data collection and/or analysis. Both could be quantitative or qualitative. For example, if data were collected from an experiment and a survey that both examined the same question, and all data were analyzed quantitatively, the research would qualify as multi-method, but not mixed method. As a result, mixed-method studies can be regarded as a special type of multi-methods research, though in recent decades it has attracted the most attention across the social sciences, including Urban Studies.
