Younas Ahtisham, Fàbregues Sergi, Munce Sarah, Creswell John W
Memorial University of Newfoundland & Labrador, 300 Prince Philip Drive, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, A1B 3V6, Canada.
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.
BMC Med Res Methodol. 2025 Jan 24;25(1):18. doi: 10.1186/s12874-025-02475-8.
The generation of metainferences is a core and significant feature of mixed methods research. In recent years, there has been some discussion in the literature about criteria for appraising the quality of metainferences, the processes for generating them, and the critical role that assessing the "fit" of quantitative and qualitative data and results plays in this generative process. However, little is known about the types of insights that emerge from generating metainferences. To address this gap, this paper conceptualize and present the types and forms of metainferences that can be generated in MMR studies for guiding future research projects.
A critical review of literature sources was conducted, including peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and research reports. We performed a non-systematic literature search in the Scopus, Web of Science, Ovid, and Google Scholar databases using general phrases such as "inferences in research", "metainferences in mixed methods", "inferences in mixed methods research", and "inference types". Additional searches included key methodological journals, such as the Journal of Mixed Methods Research, International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches, Methodological Innovations, and the Sage Research Methods database, to locate books, chapters, and peer-reviewed articles that discussed inferences and metainferences.
We propose two broad types of metainferences and five sub-types. The broad metainferences are global and specific, and the subtypes include relational, predictive, causal, comparative, and elaborative metainferences. Furthermore, we provide examples of each type of metainference from published mixed methods empirical studies.
This paper contributes to the field of mixed methods research by expanding the knowledge about metainferences and offering a practical framework of types of metainferences for mixed methods researchers and educators. The proposed framework offers an approach to identifying and recognizing types of metainferences in mixed methods research and serves as an opportunity for future discussion on the nature, insights, and characteristic features of metainferences within this methodology. By proposing a foundation for metainferences, our framework advances this critical area of mixed methods research.
元推断的产生是混合方法研究的一个核心且重要的特征。近年来，文献中对评估元推断质量的标准、产生元推断的过程以及评估定量和定性数据与结果的“契合度”在这一产生过程中所起的关键作用进行了一些讨论。然而，对于通过产生元推断所获得的见解类型却知之甚少。为填补这一空白，本文对混合方法研究（MMR）中可以产生的元推断的类型和形式进行了概念化并予以呈现，以指导未来的研究项目。
对文献来源进行了批判性综述，包括同行评审文章、书籍章节和研究报告。我们在Scopus、科学网、Ovid和谷歌学术数据库中使用“研究中的推断”“混合方法中的元推断”“混合方法研究中的推断”以及“推断类型”等通用短语进行了非系统性文献检索。额外的检索还包括关键的方法论期刊，如《混合方法研究杂志》《国际多研究方法杂志》《方法创新》以及Sage研究方法数据库，以查找讨论推断和元推断的书籍、章节和同行评审文章。
我们提出了两种广义的元推断类型和五个子类型。广义的元推断是全局性的和特定性的，子类型包括关系性元推断、预测性元推断、因果性元推断、比较性元推断和阐释性元推断。此外，我们从已发表的混合方法实证研究中给出了每种元推断类型的示例。
本文通过扩展关于元推断的知识，并为混合方法研究人员和教育工作者提供一个实用的元推断类型框架，为混合方法研究领域做出了贡献。所提出的框架提供了一种在混合方法研究中识别和认识元推断类型的方法，并为未来关于该方法论中元推断的性质、见解和特征的讨论提供了契机。通过为元推断提出一个基础，我们的框架推动了混合方法研究这一关键领域的发展。
