Mixed Methods – Transformative Design Introduction: Transformative philosophy has been around since the 1980s and 1990s, it arose from individuals who believed that the postpositivist assumptions imposed structural theories that did not fit marginalized people in our society, transformative research is defined as that which “transforms” or causes a major change in thought patterns. It is also one of the philosophies that considered in mixed methods. Historically, the transformative writers have drawn on the work of Marx, Adorno, Marcuse, Habermas, and Freire. The mixed methods design can essentially be any of the formats of the other mixed methods for design, but what differentiates it here, is that it has a transformative framework, so all …show more content…
the framework represents whatever that social justice cause is, and it is seen throughout the research that you are doing in the transformative design, so naturally, the transformative design would be used whenever you are addressing issues of social justice or a call to change, especially when it deals with underrepresented and marginalized populations. Sometimes if you are having a research done with an underrepresented or marginalized population, then you kind of automatically get this transformative design especially when you pull in pragmatism worldview, in that, you are not concerned about where your results come from qualitative or quantitative but that the results are there to really push forward the cause. Considerations for designing a transformative …show more content…
Challenges: Transformative Design Some of the challenges of using this design are, first, you have to have a trust with your participants and being able to conduct a research that really describes whatever that cultural group is, that’s the center of the framework, but If the researcher is not a member of the community, what are the measures that are needed to establish a trusting relationship? Second, there is very little guidance in the literature, you don’t see people talking about how exactly this transformative design is done, and it's going to be different everytime its done because you are using a mixed methods design. Challenges also arise in terms of the accepted role of the researcher: Should researchers be distant from their subjects to eliminate bias? Or should they be close to and involved with their participants to eliminate