MMR in Design – Opportunities for Interdisciplinary Research

This paper is based upon a chapter written for the forthcoming Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd book the Handbook of Mixed Methods Research in Business and Management edited by Professor Roslyn Cameron and Dr Xanthe Golenko. The motivation for this chapter is to examine how mixed methods research (MMR) has been utilised in the journal Design Studies in order to inform business and management research. Design studies is a journal that concerns itself with the processes of design. By examining how design research is conducted for a journal examining process, it is hoped that it may result in less siloed research approaches. Research methods from other disciplines may discover approaches used in design research will be applicable to process research in other fields so that the full potential of MMR can be achieved. By understanding the methods used, the methods mix and determining which methods are more frequently used in design research, innovative approaches may inform and be applied in the broader MMR community.
This paper reports on the MMR prevalence study that set out to a) determine how frequently design researchers utilised MMR in the journal Design Studies for the period 2014 to 2020, b) what the mix of these methods were and c) the most frequently used methods and their combinations. All 282 articles published in the years 2014-2020 were examined and excluding book and exhibition reviews, editorials and opinion pieces, bringing the total number of academic papers examined in the study to 246.
The investigation determines that mixed methods research is the most often used methodology in the articles, comprising 86 (35%) of the 246 academic papers included. This chapter lists the research methods used and their form of combination. Findings point to the combination of three different methods is the preferred mix representing 15% of all methods with experiments/quasi experimental, case studies and semi-structured interviews the most frequently used methods overall.
An interesting finding was the emergence of protocol analysis as a method that was frequently used in Design Studies’ MMR papers. Protocol analysis is a qualitative-based quantitative data collection method which should be considered a valuable tool as part of MMR and the development of practice-based theory. It examines the thought processes used by designers as they design, using a ‘think aloud’ technique and requiring the coding and categorisation of results.