Collaboration Patterns as a Function of Research Experience Among Mixed Researchers: A Mixed Methods Bibliometric Study

Onwuegbuzie et al. (2018) documented that the degree of collaboration is higher for mixed researchers than for qualitative and quantitative researchers. The present investigation examined the (a) link between the research experience of lead authors and their propensity to collaborate (Quantitative Phase), and (b) role of research experience in collaborative mixed research studies (Qualitative Phase). Analyses of articles published in the Journal of Mixed Methods Research from 2007 (its inception) to the third issue in 2018 (time of data collection) revealed that the average research experience of lead authors decreased from 20.29 in 2007 to 14.24 in 2017 (last complete year), representing a significant reduction of 29.8%. No statistically significant relationship emerged between degree of collaboration and research experience. The qualitative phase yielded 3 themes and 9 subthemes that identified several differences and similarities between the desire for collaboration and research experience. In particular, for the least-experienced mixed methods researchers, collaboration might be associated with negative emotions (e.g., frustration, stress, anxiety) and this coupled with the lack of perceived weaknesses reported by the most-experienced sub-participants, suggest that years of experience have an impact on their affective state during the conduct of collaborative mixed methods research studies. Implications of these findings are discussed

Collaboration patterns as a function of article genre among mixed researchers: a mixed methods bibliometric study.

Surprisingly, scant information exists regarding the collaboration patterns of mixed methods researchers. Thus, the purpose of this mixed methods bibliometric study was to examine (a) the distribution of the number of co-authors in articles published in the flagship mixed methods research journal (i.e., "Journal of Mixed Methods Research" ["JMMR"]) as a function of article genre (Quantitative Phase); (b) the relationship between the genre of articles published in "JMMR" and degree of collaboration in these articles (Quantitative Phase); (c) the difference between the number of authors in empirical research articles and non-empirical research articles published in "JMMR" (Quantitative Phase); and (d) select leading mixed methods researchers' collaboration experiences as a function of genre of article (Qualitative Phase). An analysis of all articles published in "JMMR" from 2007 (its inception) to 2015 (the latest complete year at the time that the study was conducted) revealed (a) a statistically significantly higher proportion of empirical research articles (63.2%) than non-empirical research articles (36.8%), (b) that empirical research articles were 1.4 times (95% confidence interval = 1.10, 1.78) more likely to involve multiple authors than were non-empirical research articles; and (c) that empirical research articles contained statistically significantly more authors than did non-empirical research articles. With respect to the qualitative phase, four themes (i.e., mental perception, mixed methods research, publication and research aids, and independent/group work) emerged regarding collaboration for empirical articles versus for non-empirical research articles. Implications of these findings are discussed