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

Trigeminal Nerve Affection in Patients with Neuro-Sjögren Detected by Corneal Confocal Microscopy

Background: Patients with Sjögren’s syndrome and polyneuropathy more frequently develop cranial nerve affection when compared to patients with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP). We therefore aimed to analyze trigeminal corneal nerve fibre characteristics in both patient groups. Methods: A total of 26 patients with Sjögren’s syndrome associated neuropathy and 29 patients with CIDP were recruited at our university hospital and compared to 6 healthy controls. Dry eye symptoms and signs were assessed via clinical examination and the Ocular Disease Surface Index questionnaire. Trigeminal corneal nerve fibres were analyzed via corneal confocal microscopy (CCM) as a non-invasive in vivo microscopy. Results: CCM revealed significantly reduced corneal nerve fibre density and corneal nerve fibre main branch density in the Neuro-Sjögren group when compared with healthy controls. There were no significant group differences between the Neuro-Sjögren and the CIDP group for any of the microscopic parameters. Dry eye assessment showed similarly reduced scores for both patient groups, while healthy controls showed better results for objective dry eye signs. There was no correlation between microscopic parameters of the corneal confocal microscopy and parameters of dry eye assessment. Conclusions: Our data revealed trigeminal corneal nerve affection in patients with neuropathy associated with Sjögren’s syndrome and patients with CIDP detected by CCM. No difference was found between both neuropathy groups indicating that CCM is not able to distinguish between both entities