Adoption of mixed method designs in applied linguistics research

Abstract: This study aimed to explore the adoption of mixed methods designs (MMDs) in applied linguistics research (2007–2021) and the types most commonly adopted. A purposive sample of a corpus of 300 applied linguistics research studies published in the specified period were selected. These articles were examined to identify their use of MMDs and their types. To determine the MMD types, Creswell and Plano Clark’s (2017) classification of MMDs was employed. The results revealed that MMDs appeared in the corpus in the fourth place, following qualitative, quantitative and quantitative/qualitative designs. The most common types of MMDs were found to be the convergent design firstly, followed by the explanatory sequential design. The exploratory sequential design did not appear in the investigated corpus. The greatest occurrence of these designs was found in the period 2012–2016, followed by 2017–2021. Regarding the most frequent subtypes, data analysis revealed that the data transformation, parallel database, questionnaire and fully integrated variants were the most prevalent designs. The case-selection variant did not appear in the corpus. The study recommends more attention to adopting MMDs in applied linguistics research.