A cross‐disciplinary examination of the prevalence of mixed methods in educational research: 1995–2005

This study examined the prevalence of mixed methods research published in 11 prominent English‐language international and U.S. national educational research journals from 1995 to 2005. A total of 2381 studies were reviewed by research teams in four educational disciplines: literacy, mathematics, social studies, and science. Of the articles examined, 332 (14%) were identified as using mixed methods. Results suggest little variation across disciplines and across the years in the number of studies using mixed methods. Further, mixed methods, although considered uniquely suited to examine complex educational issues, does not seem to be an increasingly popular research method. Issues in defining and identifying mixed methods in educational research are discussed.