Donna M Mertens
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 171898 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Donna M Mertens |
| NOMBRES | Donna M |
| APELLIDO | Mertens |
| FIRMA | MERTENS D M |
| AFILIACIONES | Gallaudet University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0251-8618 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 39 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 424 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 37 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 2 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1990 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 12 |
Qualitatively Driven Mixed Methods Research in the Caribbean Context
The diverse culture, identities, and practices across the Caribbean provide rich insight into the contextual nature of “knowing” and “being” within the region. While this diversity is rooted in the shared colonial history, it transcends to embrace Indigenous strengths and ways from the region. These qualities are essential in defining how research should be conducted with Caribbean people and communities. Traditional mixed methods approaches have…
Vignette Research
Vignette research is an innovative qualitative, narrative and phenomenological research methodology that has gained international recognition, sparking interest from a wide range of individuals and institutions in global contexts. Vignettes are concise narratives, which capture human experiences in real life settings. They reveal surprising or intriguing facets and intangible moments. The experiential narratives resonate with readers and reduce t…
Mixed Methods Research for Social Betterment and a More Just World
Mixed methods researchers who make a commitment to use their work for social betterment take a stance that has implications for their designs. This article contributes to mixed methods by illustrating how designs informed by the transformative and Indigenous paradigms provide examples of both the value of pursuing this goal, as well as the challenges that mixed methods researchers face. Social betterment studies engage with marginalized and vulne…
Mixed Methods Research
In this book, Mertens provides a brief history of the emergence of mixed methods research and numerous examples to illustrate its application in different disciplines and geographic areas. Mixed methods approaches offer researchers an exciting opportunity to explore new combinations of methods in diverse contexts: the design possibilities are endless and can be incorporated in many different approaches. The book presents case studies to illustrat…
Indigenous Made in Africa Evaluation Frameworks
Transformative change is needed if the world is to achieve the sustainable development goals. Such change requires attention to culture, ethics, and values. We discuss the need to be responsive to the voices of Indigenous scholars in terms of the assumptions that guide methodological choices in the evaluation of international initiatives. We describe an Indigenous paradigmatic framework and then narrow the focus to a Made in Africa approach to ev…
Transformative Research Methods to Increase Social Impact for Vulnerable Groups and Cultural Minorities
A transformative lens applied to research increases impact in the form of providing support for actions that increase social, economic, and environmental justice. Researchers who accept the role of supporting transformative change can enhance their abilities to do so through the use of a transformative lens that informs the design, implementation, and use of their research. The transformative ethical assumption informs methodological choices in t…
Research and Inequality
Paradigm lost? the theory and practice of anti-discriminatory research, Carol Truman defining without discrimination? minority ethnic groups and social problems - the case of street youths in Canada, Shirley Roy and Jacques Rheaume an integrated approach to human rights and social research, Stanley Whitkin from critical thought to emancipatory action - contradictory research goals?, Beth Humphries needs assessment - crucial step in emancipatory w…
Advancing social change in South Africa through transformative research
The role of researchers in a context of adversity can be expanded in ways that increase their ability to contribute to positive social change. By using a transformative mixed methods approach to research, social transformation is built into the research process by framing research in a human rights and social justice way that supports community-based action to solve problems. Examples from South Africa and elsewhere illustrate the application of …
Integration Tensions and Possibilities
Philosophic tensions arise in bringing together research agendas associated with the transformative paradigm and Indigenous peoples because of the latter's history of colonization and betrayal. The alliance between the transformative and Indigenous agendas is therefore not an entirely comfortable fit. However, we argue that Indigenous voices can be brought into the transformative paradigm as a way of stretching and enriching understandings of the…
Expanding Thinking Through a Kaleidoscopic Look Into the Future
The field of mixed methods research abounds with opportunities for creative development in terms of methodological advances and potential to contribute to important and complex societal problems. Inspired by issues that arose in the Mixed Methods International Research Association task force report on the future of mixed methods, this article contemplates its implications for challenges and opportunities for the mixed methods community for advanc…
Mixed Methods Research With Groups at Risk
The potential of social transformation embedded in mixed methods research is one of the longstanding and ongoing debates within the specialized literature (Hesse-Biber, 2010; Mertens, 2011). Manifold reflections have been provided in this regard, each of them shedding light on different perspectives, with arguments ranging from a strong support for this role for mixed methods research and others arguing against this position (Mertens & Hesse Bibe…
Mixed Methods and Wicked Problems
En el Repositorio Universidad de Santander están depositados materiales en formato digital fruto de la producción científica o académica, de esta manera permite almacenar, difundir y preservar información de vital importancia
A Momentous Development in Mixed Methods Research
I am devoting this editorial to the historical development occurring in mixed methods research, that is, the launch of the Mixed Methods International Research Association (MMIRA) and plans for the first MMIRA conference to be held in Boston, Massachusetts. I make this choice for this editorial because I have been part of other significant shifts in our professional worlds in which the history of the developments of those organizations were not r…
Emerging Advances in Mixed Methods
Mixed methods researchers are extending our understandings of how to understand complex social phenomenon, as well as how to use research to develop effective interventions to address complex social problems. This was evident in many of the presentations that were made at the International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry that was held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May 15-18, 2013. Researchers from many different countries rai…
Triangulation and Mixed Methods Research
Triangulation is a measurement technique often used by surveyors to locate an object in space by relying on two known points in order to ‘‘triangulate’’ on an unknown fixed point in that same space. Early on, social scientists borrowed the concept of triangulation to argue for its use in the validation process in assessing the veracity of social science research results. There are alternative perspectives on the use of triangulation that argue fo…
What Comes First? The Paradigm or the Approach
The mixed methods community is awash in discussions about philosophical frameworks or paradigms that provide guidance for mixed methods approaches (B. Johnson & Gray, 2010). Part of the reason for the multiplicity of viewpoints about the role of paradigms in mixed methods research emanates from the different uses of the term paradigm. When Thomas Kuhn (1962) brought this term into the academic community through his book, The Structure of Scientif…
Tim May and Beth Perry, Social Research and Reflexivity
Transformative Mixed Methods
Researchers committed to furthering social justice face many challenges in aligning their values with their research approaches. The transformative paradigm provides a philosophical framework that focuses on ethics in terms of cultural responsiveness, recognizing those dimensions of diversity that are associated with power differences, building trusting relationships, and developing mixed methods that are conducive to social change. Examples of t…
Integrating Pathways
Transformative research is rooted in the axiological assumption that priority be given to the furtherance of human rights and the pursuit of social justice (Mertens, 2009; 2010; Mertens, Holmes, & Harris, 2009). This belief provides a basis for subsequent decision making about methodology. Planning for utilization of findings to influence health and social policy is essential during the initial stages of research design, as well as throughout the…
Program Evaluation without a Client
Evaluators know they are supposed to identify and engage with stakeholders. What happens when the client has a very narrow concept of the meaning of evaluation? What happens when the primary stakeholders, including the client, disappear just as the evaluation gets started? First, it is important to acknowledge the challenge, then develop a strategy to negotiate the scope of the evaluation and to broaden the community of stakeholders. Divergent pa…
Mixed Methods as Tools for Social Change
Researchers often justify their choice of mixed methods on the basis that it allows them to understand the phenomenon they are studying more completely than would be possible with a single method. In this editorial, I raise the question for mixed methods researchers: To what end do we understand the phenomenon we study more completely? Researchers have a long tradition of answering this question with the response: We conduct research to create ne…
Publishing Mixed Methods Research
Max Bergman and I have completed our first year serving as editors for the Journal of Mixed Methods Research (JMMR). During that time, we have reviewed a considerable number of manuscripts and other publications in the field of mixed methods research. Each manuscript submitted to JMMR is reviewed by three anonymous reviewers, sometimes an associate editor, and both editors. This sequence of reviewing provides us with a rich base for recognizing w…
Social Transformation and Evaluation
Evaluators work in contexts in which social inequities create tensions with regard to decisions about programs and their evaluation. In this article, Donna Mertens explores the meaning of ethics for evaluators who consciously position themselves as promoters of human rights and social justice. The transformative paradigm is offered as a framework for considering the assumptions that guide evaluators who take such a position in terms of methodolog…
Research and evaluation in education and psychology
Transformative Mixed Methods Research
Paradigms serve as metaphysical frameworks that guide researchers in the identification and clarification of their beliefs with regard to ethics, reality, knowledge, and methodology. The transformative paradigm is explained and illustrated as a framework for researchers who place a priority on social justice and the furtherance of human rights. The basic belief systems associated with this paradigm are explained and illustrated by examples of res…
Transformative Paradigm
The intersection of mixed methods and social justice has implications for the role of the researcher and choices of specific paradigmatic perspectives. The transformative paradigm with its associated philosophical assumptions provides a framework for addressing inequality and injustice in society using culturally competent, mixed methods strategies. The recognition that realities are constructed and shaped by social, political, cultural, economic…
Transformative Mixed Methods Research
Paradigms serve as metaphysical frameworks that guide researchers in the identification and clarification of their beliefs with regard to ethics, reality, knowledge, and methodology. The transformative paradigm is explained and illustrated as a framework for researchers who place a priority on social justice and the furtherance of human rights. The basic belief systems associated with this paradigm are explained and illustrated by examples of res…
Inclusive Evaluation
Evaluators face a challenge in responding to a call for greater inclusiveness of marginalized groups. In this presentation, I examine the contribution that transformative theory can make toward meeting this challenge. Transformative scholars assume that knowledge is not neutral, but is influenced by human interests, and that all knowledge reflects the power and social relationships within society, and that an important purpose of knowledge constr…
Inclusive evaluation
Mixed Methods and Wicked Problems
En el Repositorio Universidad de Santander están depositados materiales en formato digital fruto de la producción científica o académica, de esta manera permite almacenar, difundir y preservar información de vital importancia
Expanding Thinking Through a Kaleidoscopic Look Into the Future
The field of mixed methods research abounds with opportunities for creative development in terms of methodological advances and potential to contribute to important and complex societal problems. Inspired by issues that arose in the Mixed Methods International Research Association task force report on the future of mixed methods, this article contemplates its implications for challenges and opportunities for the mixed methods community for advanc…
Transformative Research Methods to Increase Social Impact for Vulnerable Groups and Cultural Minorities
A transformative lens applied to research increases impact in the form of providing support for actions that increase social, economic, and environmental justice. Researchers who accept the role of supporting transformative change can enhance their abilities to do so through the use of a transformative lens that informs the design, implementation, and use of their research. The transformative ethical assumption informs methodological choices in t…
What Comes First? The Paradigm or the Approach
The mixed methods community is awash in discussions about philosophical frameworks or paradigms that provide guidance for mixed methods approaches (B. Johnson & Gray, 2010). Part of the reason for the multiplicity of viewpoints about the role of paradigms in mixed methods research emanates from the different uses of the term paradigm. When Thomas Kuhn (1962) brought this term into the academic community through his book, The Structure of Scientif…
Publishing Mixed Methods Research
Max Bergman and I have completed our first year serving as editors for the Journal of Mixed Methods Research (JMMR). During that time, we have reviewed a considerable number of manuscripts and other publications in the field of mixed methods research. Each manuscript submitted to JMMR is reviewed by three anonymous reviewers, sometimes an associate editor, and both editors. This sequence of reviewing provides us with a rich base for recognizing w…
Indigenous Made in Africa Evaluation Frameworks
Transformative change is needed if the world is to achieve the sustainable development goals. Such change requires attention to culture, ethics, and values. We discuss the need to be responsive to the voices of Indigenous scholars in terms of the assumptions that guide methodological choices in the evaluation of international initiatives. We describe an Indigenous paradigmatic framework and then narrow the focus to a Made in Africa approach to ev…
Mixed Methods as Tools for Social Change
Researchers often justify their choice of mixed methods on the basis that it allows them to understand the phenomenon they are studying more completely than would be possible with a single method. In this editorial, I raise the question for mixed methods researchers: To what end do we understand the phenomenon we study more completely? Researchers have a long tradition of answering this question with the response: We conduct research to create ne…
Transformative Considerations
Should the Russians be included in the evaluation and, if so, how can that be done? Based on the axiological assumption that the social justice theory of ethics leads to an awareness of the need to redress inequalities by giving precedence, or at least equal weight, to the voice of the least advantaged groups in society who may not have sufficient power for accurate representation among the stakeholder groups, the ethical path leads to answering …
Triangulation and Mixed Methods Research
Triangulation is a measurement technique often used by surveyors to locate an object in space by relying on two known points in order to ‘‘triangulate’’ on an unknown fixed point in that same space. Early on, social scientists borrowed the concept of triangulation to argue for its use in the validation process in assessing the veracity of social science research results. There are alternative perspectives on the use of triangulation that argue fo…
Mixed Methods Research With Groups at Risk
The potential of social transformation embedded in mixed methods research is one of the longstanding and ongoing debates within the specialized literature (Hesse-Biber, 2010; Mertens, 2011). Manifold reflections have been provided in this regard, each of them shedding light on different perspectives, with arguments ranging from a strong support for this role for mixed methods research and others arguing against this position (Mertens & Hesse Bibe…
Transformative Mixed Methods
Researchers committed to furthering social justice face many challenges in aligning their values with their research approaches. The transformative paradigm provides a philosophical framework that focuses on ethics in terms of cultural responsiveness, recognizing those dimensions of diversity that are associated with power differences, building trusting relationships, and developing mixed methods that are conducive to social change. Examples of t…
Divergence and Mixed Methods
Is mixed methods research in its infancy, adolescence, or maturity? Should mixed methods researchers be searching for convergence on such topics as a definition of mixed methods, par-adigmatic assumptions that guide mixed methods researchers, approaches in the conduct of mixed methods, or teaching of this subject area? Or, is mixed methods research at a stage in which too much convergence might result in premature closure in the sense that many i…
Focus Group Design and Group Dynamics
Focus groups are a common tool in evaluation. Here we report experience conducting focus groups with deaf and hard of hearing people, from which we reflect on lessons learned about how we can more effectively “listen” to people in all focus groups—particularly those that don’t intentionally include people with a hearing loss. We learned that: (1) focus groups with deaf and hard of hearing people can be highly productive on even the most sensitive…
Advantages and Challenges of Using Inclusive Evaluation Approaches in Evaluation Practice
Social Transformation and Evaluation
Evaluators work in contexts in which social inequities create tensions with regard to decisions about programs and their evaluation. In this article, Donna Mertens explores the meaning of ethics for evaluators who consciously position themselves as promoters of human rights and social justice. The transformative paradigm is offered as a framework for considering the assumptions that guide evaluators who take such a position in terms of methodolog…
Emerging Advances in Mixed Methods
Mixed methods researchers are extending our understandings of how to understand complex social phenomenon, as well as how to use research to develop effective interventions to address complex social problems. This was evident in many of the presentations that were made at the International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry that was held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May 15-18, 2013. Researchers from many different countries rai…
Inclusivity and Transformation
Mixed Methods Research for Social Betterment and a More Just World
Mixed methods researchers who make a commitment to use their work for social betterment take a stance that has implications for their designs. This article contributes to mixed methods by illustrating how designs informed by the transformative and Indigenous paradigms provide examples of both the value of pursuing this goal, as well as the challenges that mixed methods researchers face. Social betterment studies engage with marginalized and vulne…
A Momentous Development in Mixed Methods Research
I am devoting this editorial to the historical development occurring in mixed methods research, that is, the launch of the Mixed Methods International Research Association (MMIRA) and plans for the first MMIRA conference to be held in Boston, Massachusetts. I make this choice for this editorial because I have been part of other significant shifts in our professional worlds in which the history of the developments of those organizations were not r…
M or F
Analyzing museum research data on the basis of a male or female distinction has the potential to create misleading findings about the subject being researched, can perpetuate bias against individuals who do not conform to heterosexual orthodoxy and, most importantly, reveals an institutional homophobia that discriminates against LGBTQ participants in the research. This paper considers the power and privilege of the researcher and choices of speci…
Social Justice Research
Practical evidence of the feasibility of the utilization-focused approach to evaluation
Advantages and Challenges of Using Inclusive Evaluation Approaches in Evaluation Practice
Focus Group Design and Group Dynamics
Focus groups are a common tool in evaluation. Here we report experience conducting focus groups with deaf and hard of hearing people, from which we reflect on lessons learned about how we can more effectively “listen” to people in all focus groups—particularly those that don’t intentionally include people with a hearing loss. We learned that: (1) focus groups with deaf and hard of hearing people can be highly productive on even the most sensitive…
Inclusive Evaluation
Evaluators face a challenge in responding to a call for greater inclusiveness of marginalized groups. In this presentation, I examine the contribution that transformative theory can make toward meeting this challenge. Transformative scholars assume that knowledge is not neutral, but is influenced by human interests, and that all knowledge reflects the power and social relationships within society, and that an important purpose of knowledge constr…
Inclusive evaluation
A Proposal for the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation
This article is the first to appear in the new section entitled The Historical Record (an event of historic note in itself!). The article describes: (a) the 500% increase in the number of regional and national evaluation organizations throughout the world over a 5-year period; (b) the historic W. K. Kellogg Foundation-funded meeting of many of these organizations in Barbados, West Indies; and (c) one of the outcomes of Barbados, which was a propo…
Inclusivity and Transformation
The Inauguration of the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation
Building an international evaluation community has the potential to strengthen the presence, practice, policies, and theories of evaluation and its contribution to improving the effectiveness of programs, policies, and services by making evaluation more rigorous, visible, and responsive to stakeholders. Following 7 years of work by evaluation leaders from many different countries, a major step toward realizing this vision occurred when the inaugu…
Transformative Paradigm
The intersection of mixed methods and social justice has implications for the role of the researcher and choices of specific paradigmatic perspectives. The transformative paradigm with its associated philosophical assumptions provides a framework for addressing inequality and injustice in society using culturally competent, mixed methods strategies. The recognition that realities are constructed and shaped by social, political, cultural, economic…
Transformative Considerations
Should the Russians be included in the evaluation and, if so, how can that be done? Based on the axiological assumption that the social justice theory of ethics leads to an awareness of the need to redress inequalities by giving precedence, or at least equal weight, to the voice of the least advantaged groups in society who may not have sufficient power for accurate representation among the stakeholder groups, the ethical path leads to answering …
M or F
Analyzing museum research data on the basis of a male or female distinction has the potential to create misleading findings about the subject being researched, can perpetuate bias against individuals who do not conform to heterosexual orthodoxy and, most importantly, reveals an institutional homophobia that discriminates against LGBTQ participants in the research. This paper considers the power and privilege of the researcher and choices of speci…
Social Justice Research
The Handbook of Social Research Ethics
Divergence and Mixed Methods
Is mixed methods research in its infancy, adolescence, or maturity? Should mixed methods researchers be searching for convergence on such topics as a definition of mixed methods, par-adigmatic assumptions that guide mixed methods researchers, approaches in the conduct of mixed methods, or teaching of this subject area? Or, is mixed methods research at a stage in which too much convergence might result in premature closure in the sense that many i…
Publishing Mixed Methods Research
Max Bergman and I have completed our first year serving as editors for the Journal of Mixed Methods Research (JMMR). During that time, we have reviewed a considerable number of manuscripts and other publications in the field of mixed methods research. Each manuscript submitted to JMMR is reviewed by three anonymous reviewers, sometimes an associate editor, and both editors. This sequence of reviewing provides us with a rich base for recognizing w…
Social Transformation and Evaluation
Evaluators work in contexts in which social inequities create tensions with regard to decisions about programs and their evaluation. In this article, Donna Mertens explores the meaning of ethics for evaluators who consciously position themselves as promoters of human rights and social justice. The transformative paradigm is offered as a framework for considering the assumptions that guide evaluators who take such a position in terms of methodolog…
Research and evaluation in education and psychology
Transformative Mixed Methods Research
Paradigms serve as metaphysical frameworks that guide researchers in the identification and clarification of their beliefs with regard to ethics, reality, knowledge, and methodology. The transformative paradigm is explained and illustrated as a framework for researchers who place a priority on social justice and the furtherance of human rights. The basic belief systems associated with this paradigm are explained and illustrated by examples of res…
Integrating Pathways
Transformative research is rooted in the axiological assumption that priority be given to the furtherance of human rights and the pursuit of social justice (Mertens, 2009; 2010; Mertens, Holmes, & Harris, 2009). This belief provides a basis for subsequent decision making about methodology. Planning for utilization of findings to influence health and social policy is essential during the initial stages of research design, as well as throughout the…
Program Evaluation without a Client
Evaluators know they are supposed to identify and engage with stakeholders. What happens when the client has a very narrow concept of the meaning of evaluation? What happens when the primary stakeholders, including the client, disappear just as the evaluation gets started? First, it is important to acknowledge the challenge, then develop a strategy to negotiate the scope of the evaluation and to broaden the community of stakeholders. Divergent pa…
Mixed Methods as Tools for Social Change
Researchers often justify their choice of mixed methods on the basis that it allows them to understand the phenomenon they are studying more completely than would be possible with a single method. In this editorial, I raise the question for mixed methods researchers: To what end do we understand the phenomenon we study more completely? Researchers have a long tradition of answering this question with the response: We conduct research to create ne…
Triangulation and Mixed Methods Research
Triangulation is a measurement technique often used by surveyors to locate an object in space by relying on two known points in order to ‘‘triangulate’’ on an unknown fixed point in that same space. Early on, social scientists borrowed the concept of triangulation to argue for its use in the validation process in assessing the veracity of social science research results. There are alternative perspectives on the use of triangulation that argue fo…
What Comes First? The Paradigm or the Approach
The mixed methods community is awash in discussions about philosophical frameworks or paradigms that provide guidance for mixed methods approaches (B. Johnson & Gray, 2010). Part of the reason for the multiplicity of viewpoints about the role of paradigms in mixed methods research emanates from the different uses of the term paradigm. When Thomas Kuhn (1962) brought this term into the academic community through his book, The Structure of Scientif…
Tim May and Beth Perry, Social Research and Reflexivity
Transformative Mixed Methods
Researchers committed to furthering social justice face many challenges in aligning their values with their research approaches. The transformative paradigm provides a philosophical framework that focuses on ethics in terms of cultural responsiveness, recognizing those dimensions of diversity that are associated with power differences, building trusting relationships, and developing mixed methods that are conducive to social change. Examples of t…
Sociology (32 obras) · Evaluation and Performance Assessment (21 obras) · Political science (21 obras) · Psychology (20 obras) · Social science (17 obras) · Computer Science (15 obras) · Transformative learning (15 obras) · Pedagogy (14 obras) · Engineering (13 obras) · Law (13 obras)