Editorial

Journal of Mixed Methods Research

2020, Vol. 14(3) 281–287
Call for Papers for a Special Ó The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
Issue on COVID-19 and Novel sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1558689820920098
Mixed Methods journals.sagepub.com/home/mmr

Methodological Approaches
During Catastrophic Social
Changes

Michael D. Fetters1 and José F. Molina-Azorin2

Given the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for mixed methods research across virtually all disci-
plines and at all levels of social institutions has never been clearer. Moreover, the complexity
of the research triggered by the current pandemic just over a century after the last pandemic of
this magnitude in 1918, the ‘‘Spanish Flu’’ (Trilla et al., 2008), is precipitating unprecedented
and creative research approaches for responding to the crisis. Similarly, researchers of all disci-
plines need the latest research approaches to investigate the implications of this world cata-
strophe. In this face of adversity lies opportunities for all walks of researchers to leverage the
power of mixed methods research.1 The world’s researchers need new applications of existing
methodologies and the creation of novel research methodologies to address a host of challenges
in the healing sciences, education, business, health policy, political science, and the arts, huma-
nities, and social sciences more broadly. Researchers who have developed novel methodologies
in their investigation of other catastrophic social changes may have particular insights that are
applicable now. The purpose of the Special Issue on COVID-19 and Novel Mixed Methods
Methodology in Catastrophic Social Changes (abbreviated as ‘‘Special Issue’’ in the following)
is to disseminate rapidly for use the novel applications and innovative mixed methods meth-
odologies that could inform or have been triggered by the pandemic.

Problems and Research Questions Associated With the

COVID-19 Outbreak
The outbreak from COVID-19, or specifically the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus type, from an epi-
demiological perspective alone commands the application of mixed methods research. As the
outbreak was beginning to emerge in China and then across the globe, epidemiologists were
calling attention to the problems of inadequate numerical data and of the limited research tools
1
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
2
University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain

Corresponding Author:
Michael D. Fetters, Mixed Methods Program, Department of Family Medicine, University of Michigan, 1018 Fuller Street,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1213, USA.
Email: mfetters@med.umich.edu
282 Journal of Mixed Methods Research 14(3)

available to them. Researchers were confronted with the dire need to integrate together emer-
ging qualitative and quantitative information. Researchers faced a lack of information about
early patterns of the disease transmission, such as how the coronavirus, which naturally occurs
in animals such as bats, made the jump to humans? What were the scientific and conspiracy the-
ories about the cause, where did they originate, how, and why? How did human interactions
propagate spread of the virus? What were the social responses as the first cases popped up in
China and nearby countries? What were the political responses, and how did these influence the
transmission and spread? The earliest medical report was a case series of 41 patients in China
that was thick with clinical laboratory data, both numerical and descriptive, as well as qualita-
tive patterns of patient medical histories, symptoms, and patterns of illness (Huang et al., 2020).
In an emerging infectious disease crisis, integrating both the quantitative measures and qualita-
tive patterns was essential.
As the number of cases increased, epidemiologists began observing quantifiable patterns,
yet still noted gaps that would be critical for understanding transmission patterns. For example,
how does the virus become transmitted from one person to another, who is at risk, why do some
tolerate infection better than others? These are gaps that could be addressed using qualitative
thinking and procedures. As an even greater number of cases emerged, and big data analysts
started developing prediction models–again the need for integration with qualitative data to
achieve a comprehensive understanding was apparent. As ‘‘big data’’ started coming online,
qualitative information was and continues to be needed to discern background noise from real
patterns. As inferences about the mechanisms of transmission, and a better understanding of the
natural course of illness became evident, containment procedures necessary from a public

Figure 1. COVID-19 wordcloud visualization.

Created by Wendy B. Dickinson, Ph.D., utilizing the wordclouds.com platform. The primary data source was the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html.
Fetters and Molina-Azorin 283

health perspective became more apparent. When institution of measures to quarantine at home
emerged, questions quickly emerged about the cultural acceptability and social costs. In the
health sciences, what would be the implications for health and medical trainees, from the most
novice just starting their clinical studies, to those who were close but not quite complete with
their training? What would be the implications for the skills and knowledge acquisition for phy-
sicians still in training, e.g., surgical trainees, deployed to non-surgical, medical care of
COVID-19 patients? What would be the implications as hospitals become burdened with
patients while primary care and dental offices withered under the brunt of financial collapse due
to a lack of patients instructed not to come due to new recommendations and norms about physi-
cal distancing, and the detouring of patients to centralized testing and treatment centers? These
rapidly emerging situations all called for sophisticated integration of qualitative and quantitative
methods to develop a greater understanding than either approach could achieve if used alone.

COVID-19: Beyond the Epidemiology

There are many other narratives and stories playing out beyond the epidemiology. How could
mixed methods trials be utilized to optimize findings for necessary clinical and behavioral inter-
ventions (Bartlam et al., 2018; Fetters & Molina-Azorin, 2020; Van Ness et al., 2017)? What
kind of mixed methods sampling designs should be used and how can the data be best inter-
preted (Collins et al., 2007)? What could be the contribution of social media and how could the
quantitative and qualitative data be harnessed (Colditz et al., 2019; Hesse-Biber & Griffin,
2013)? What role could mixed methods play in public health interventions in communities
(DeJonckheere et al., 2019; Pinto et al., 2014)? How could the impact on the most vulnerable be
assessed and shared effectively with policy makers (Alatinga & Williams, 2019)? How could
the arts and humanities be orchestrated and evaluated to cope with the tragedy (See wordcloud,
Figure 1)? How could mixed methods help elucidate and find solutions for the psychological
stress of the outbreak (Watkins et al., 2017)? How could new or existing theory inform design,
analysis, or interpretation of mixed methods data (Evans et al., 2011; Kallemeyn et al., 2019)?
How could mixed methods social network analysis (Fielding & Cisneros-Puebla, 2009; Yousefi
Nooraie et al., 2020), mixed methods GPS (Christensen et al., 2011), or mixed methods GIS
(Bhuyan & Zhang, 2019; Jones, 2017) be used to understand and curb the epidemic? How could
an approach using machine learning, natural language processing, and data visualization be inte-
grated as mixed methods to develop new understandings (Alexander et al., 2020; O’Halloran et
al., 2018)? How could self-reports of COVID-19 symptoms be incorporated into heat maps, ana-
lyzed, and utilized real-time to help slow the spread of the virus (Flatten, n.d.)? What application
of existing or novel philosophical approaches could be adapted or applied for an integrated
approach (Johnson et al., 2019)? How could humanism and mixed methods potentially inform the
human loss and suffering (Andrés-Gallego, 2015)? How could the costs relative to the loss of
socially important events, small, for example, weddings and funerals, to large, for example, perfor-
mances, sporting events, and concerts, be assessed? What would be the impact of those engaged in
education, from the teachers to pupils at all levels? How would businesses small and large adapt
or fail? How would society deal with outbreaks among the incarcerated? How would the most vul-
nerable in slums or other economically depressed areas of the world be affected, counted, and
helped by their governments? How would gangs or different political factions in embattled com-
munities leverage the outbreak to advance their own agendas? What would be the consequences
of the COVID-19 epidemic on a world already struggling with the human toll of extraordinary lev-
els of migration and how could mixed methods help provide answers (Bergman, 2018)?
284 Journal of Mixed Methods Research 14(3)

Potential Methodological Insights From Previous Catastrophic Events

The current COVID-19 pandemic is not the only catastrophic social event to occur in the past
century. We believe mixed methods researchers have other methodological experiences to draw
upon. The acuity of the pandemic triggered an unprecedented upsurge in telemedicine visits.
Caffery et al. (2017) provide a window on how mixed methods research could be used in tele-
health research. What are the lessons learned from the onset of the HIV outbreak and the ensu-
ing years when it has transformed into a chronic disease? What is the potential role for
biomarkers in a mixed methods approach? The first severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-
CoV) outbreak started in 2002, the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) outbreak
started in Saudi Arabia in 2012 (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, n.d.a),
and the Ebola virus outbreak raged from 2014 to 2016 in West Africa (National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, n.d.b). What novel mixed methods research methodologies
have researchers utilized in their previous study experiences that could inform the present?
These examples represent just a few of the myriad problems from the current COVID-19
outbreak and from the more recent past related to infectious diseases that have triggered severe
social upheaval and illustrate the imperative for a mixed methods approach. While the modern
field of mixed methods research has accumulated three decades of experience (Fetters, 2016),
the current crisis calls for adaptations of current mixed methods methodologies and novel mixed
methods methodology development. At this moment, these methods are doubtlessly evolving.
Humankind around the globe needs a home for these methodological innovations now.

Features of Articles and Article Types for the Special Issue

This Special Issue will be coordinated as generally described in the previous announcement
about special issues at Journal of Mixed Methods Research (JMMR; Molina-Azorin & Fetters,
2018). Articles for the Special Issue should focus on relevant theoretical and methodological
topics relevant to mixed methods research rather than substantive/disciplinary topics. Papers
about specific substantive/disciplinary topics that illustrate particularly salient and important
innovations in methodology are welcome. As JMMR is a methodological journal that focuses
on mixed methods research, the key criterion for papers to be published in general and for this
Special Issue is to add value by contributing to the methodological and theoretical mixed meth-
ods literature. Manuscript types eligible for this Special Issue include commentaries, research
notes, empirical papers, and methodological/theoretical papers. To illustrate the highest commit-
ment at JMMR to this Special Issue, it will be led and managed by the Co-Editors in Chief. The
special issue will be free to read upon publication and COVID-19 articles will be published open
access under CC-BY licenses.

Details About Submission and Publication of the Special Issue on

Mixed Methods Methodology in Catastrophic Social Changes
Manuscripts submitted for review will be fast-tracked for a quick review, revision, processing,
and posting under a highly expedited timeframe. Authors should use the JMMR online submis-
sion link https://journals.sagepub.com/home/mmr and note in the cover letter that the paper is
being submitted for consideration in the Special Issue on COVID-19 and Novel Mixed Methods
Methodological Approaches During Catastrophic Social Changes. The closing date for submis-
sions to the Special Issue will be September 30, 2020. Accepted articles will be posted as open
access immediately into the online issue that will be disseminated in print by the beginning of
2021. To expedite efficient processing of submissions, we encourage all authors, especially
Fetters and Molina-Azorin 285

those new to JMMR and publishing mixed methods research methodology, to review carefully
the recommendations for crafting effective mixed methods research methodology manuscripts
in the October 2019 editorial of JMMR (Fetters & Molina-Azorin, 2019).
The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic calls for human ingenuity and innovation. The
world’s researchers have learned from past catastrophes, but the current COVID-19 is by far the
most serious and behaviorally and socially disruptive. The need for mixed methods research
and the need for advances in innovation have never been greater. Researchers must seize this
moment to use and create novel mixed methods methodologies for addressing the current crisis
and to inform future cataclysmic and catastrophic social changes as well. As editors at JMMR,
we wish to contribute by providing a venue for disseminating the publication of the latest mixed
methods methodological advances to empower the researchers who need and will find the solu-
tions to the current cataclysm and future social calamities. For overcoming this disastrous dis-
ruption, we look forward to a decidedly determined response by the mixed methods research
community and methodologists to guide the necessary research for the present and future cata-
strophic events.

Note
1. Mixed methods research is an approach that integrates qualitative and quantitative traditions – with
integration possible at the levels of method, methodology, and philosophical paradigm – for the pri-
mary purpose of greater understanding of complex phenomena (Greene, 2015; Fetters & Molina-
Azorin, 2017; Fetters, 2020, p. 2). Qualitative research is a tradition of inquiry used to examine
how or why a phenomenon occurs, or examines in depth the nature of experiences relative to a phe-
nomenon of interest. Qualitative researchers view reality as socially constructed, acknowledge and
use their own lenses in their work, and use a variety of unstructured data collection procedures such
as individual and group interviews, observations, and archival sources (Fetters 2020, p. 3-4).
Quantitative research is a tradition of inquiry used to measure a phenomenon, or examine associa-
tions between variables, or attribute causality. Quantitative researchers view reality to be objective
and investigate research questions or hypotheses using structured data collection procedures with
close-ended questions, scales, items, or other measures (Fetters, 2020, p. 5) The hallmark of a
mixed methods study, integration is ‘‘the linking of qualitative and quantitative approaches and
dimensions together to create a new whole or holistic understanding than achieved by either alone’’
(Fetters & Molina-Azorin, 2017, p. 293).

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