Traditionally, there is a strong difference between the methods applied in the natural sciences and those in the social sciences and humanities. The natural sciences tend to apply quantitative methods; the social sciences, especially psychology, human geography, and sociology, are more qualitatively oriented. However, there are notable exceptions, such as economics and important tranches of sociology, where quantitative approaches are predominant. The division between the two approaches still exists today, despite the fact that, already in the nineteenth century, scientists pleaded for the social sciences to follow a positivist ontology in using the same methods as the natural sciences (Durkheim, Les Règles de la Méthode Sociologique, 1895; see Lukes, 1982). Durkheim, in fact, did away with all approaches but the positivist one: “Such a science [a normative one] can only be a stunted one, for it lacks the subject matter on which to feed” (Lukes, 1982, p. 60). While important sectors within the social sciences have indeed developed in this positivist way; other fields of research have continued to rely more on qualitative methods, making them more interpretivist than positivist.
The positivist and quantitative approaches dominated large swathes of the twentieth century, characterized by the “two cultures” divide between science and the arts, famously recognized by Snow in his 1959 Rede lecture (see Snow, 1959). Despite this, the movement towards the reintegration of research was relatively slow until the end of the century, although a notable contribution in 1966 saw the concept of triangulation entering the research methods vocabulary (Webb et al., 1966). More recently, the publication of the Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social and Behavioral Research (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2003), followed shortly thereafter by the launch of The Journal of Mixed Methods Research in 2006, sparked a significant increase in mixed methods across the social sciences. In line with this growth, mixed methods articles have been shown to attract higher citation rates in some fields (Molina-Azorin, 2012). However, the choices faced by researchers are more complex that just mono- or multi-methods: The latter encompasses research where methods are wholly integrated as well as those where they are carried out separately in order to provide different perspectives or to enable data triangulation (Saunders et al., 2016).
This discussion on methods also exists in rural studies. Both Crang (2002) and Woods (2010) have shown that in the 1990s qualitative research became more common in rural geography, after a long dominance of quantitative methods. Crang also showed that the combination of quantitative and qualitative research could yield fruitful new perspectives on emerging research problems.
Rural studies in its modern sense is, according to Cloke and colleagues (2006, p.4), “an amalgam of social science disciplines,” at the crossroads of “the agro-food and rural and regional restructuring dynamics.” It is related to various disciplines, such as sociology, economics and geography. As economics and parts of sociology are more quantitatively oriented, and geography and other parts of sociology more qualitative, rural studies sits at the crossroads of both approaches. This could make rural studies a fertile breeding-ground for the increased use of mixed methods, prompting our investigation into whether or not this really has happened, and if so, to what extent, and where. Answers are relevant for researchers in the field, and also for the management of the leading journals.
Our paper can be placed in the discussion on methods in rural studies as developed by Crang, Woods and Akimowicz. The aim is to highlight the present-day situation in the field of rural studies by means of a content analysis of the leading journals in the field. Hence we figure out in the extent to which qualitative, quantitative or mixed method approaches have gained or lost attention in rural studies. Moreover, we test the observation by Woods (2010) that multi method articles are still largely missing in rural geography. The scope of our analysis is framed by the three journals selected. From the aims and scope set out on each of their homepages, we are essentially interested in social science research that focuses on “social, political and cultural aspects of rural development” (Sociologia Ruralis), “sociological and interdisciplinary research into social issues affecting rural people and places” (Rural Sociology), and “research that advances understanding and analysis of contemporary rural societies, economies, cultures and lifestyles” (Rural Studies). Our focus on the three journals implies that we do not cover all rural studies; many papers in the field are published elsewhere. This is a limitation of our work, as authors could choose other journals not only because of their topic but also because of their methods, or because of their origin. Just to mention some examples, several ‘rural’ papers are published in quantitatively oriented journals such as Population, Space and Place, and Regional Studies. These journals are most probably to a certain extent chosen because of the method applied. Others from non-Western or non-West European countries could have a preference for journals more familiar to them, such as the International Journal of Rural Management (India based) or European Countryside (Czech based).Sociologia Ruralis reflects the diversity of European social-science research on rural areas and related issues. The complexity and diversity of rural problems require multi- and interdisciplinary approaches. Over the past 40 years Sociologia Ruralis has been an international forum for social scientists engaged in a wide variety of disciplines focusing on social, political, and cultural aspects of rural development. Sociologia Ruralis covers a wide range of subjects, ranging from farming, natural resources, and food systems to rural communities, rural identities, and the restructuring of rurality.
The Journal of Rural Studies publishes cutting-edge research that advances understanding and analysis of contemporary rural societies, economies, cultures, and lifestyles; the definition and representation of rurality; the formulation, implementation, and contestation of rural policy; and human interactions with the rural environment. The journal is an interdisciplinary publication and welcomes articles from diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches, which engage with and contribute to the rural social science literature, as broadly defined by the disciplines of rural geography, rural sociology, agricultural and rural economics, planning, and cognate subjects. The coverage of the journal is global in scope and solicits articles based on empirical research in any part of the world that is of relevance and interest to international readers. The primary audience of the journal are social science researchers, teachers, and students interested in contemporary rural issues, processes, and experiences.
A forum for cutting-edge research, Rural Sociology explores sociological and interdisciplinary approaches to emerging social issues and new approaches to recurring social issues affecting rural people and places. The journal is particularly interested in advancing sociological theory and welcomes the use of a wide range of social science methodologies. Manuscripts that use a sociological perspective to address the effects of local and global systems on rural people and places, rural community revitalization, rural demographic changes, rural poverty, natural resource allocations, the environment, food and agricultural systems, and related topics from all regions of the world are welcome. Rural Sociology also accepts papers that significantly advance the measurement of key sociological concepts or provide well-documented critical analysis of one or more theories as these measures and analyses are related to rural sociology.
Although related to rural studies, agronomy and agricultural economics, and regional economics do not belong to the core of it. For this reason, we are excluding agronomy and agricultural economics, as well as regional economics, from our research. Moreover, the application of mixed methods research in those fields has recently been discussed in a contribution to Journal of Rural Studies by Akimowicz et al. (2018).
From the mixed methods perspective, rural studies is an interesting field, because, traditionally and to a certain extent even today, agriculture is still an important sector in rural areas. Rural areas are physically dominated by agriculture, and agricultural sciences tend to be primarily a niche domain of the natural sciences. Following this line of reasoning, one could hypothesize that quantitative approaches might still dominate the field of rural studies. However, there is also a rich social science tradition in rural studies, which is often positioned as a special kind of sociology (see again Cloke et al., 2006; esp. Chapter 1). The leading conferences in the field are organized by the European Society for Rural Sociology (ESRS), and the names of two of the three leading journals also support this notion (Sociologia Ruralis and Rural Sociology). This might suggest that more qualitative approaches would dominate.
Apart from quantitative and qualitative research methods, there is a third way: the use of mixed methods. The application of mixed methods is also by no means new, as explained by Bryman in the editorial to the five-volume standard work Mixed Methods (Bryman, 2006), and in the Handbook of Mixed Methods (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2003). What is new, according to Bryman, is the recent growing interest in its potential. Mixed methods research should not be confused with mixed mode surveys, since mixed mode is about different ways of collecting data (see, for instance, De Leeuw et al., 2008). The interest in mixed methods research is the outcome of a lengthy scientific debate, sometimes referred to as “the paradigm wars” (Hammersley, 1992). The argument of the early contributors in this debate (see Bryden, 2006, p. XXXVI) against mixing quantitative and qualitative methods was that both approaches are based on completely different philosophical positions and assumptions about social research (Bryden, 2006, p. XXIX). In the domain of rural studies this point was developed by Möller Madsen and Adriansen (2004), emphasizing the challenge of combining qualitative and quantitative data in rural research, and showing the advantages of the application of mixed methods in multi-faceted research problems.
The different philosophical positions and assumptions especially play a role in relation to triangulation, where traditionally triangulation is understood as the use of a different method in order to validate the outcome of another method (see, for instance, Cronbach and Meehl (1955), as reprinted in Bryden [2006]). However, the term triangulation has gradually also taken on a different content: approaching a social phenomenon from different perspectives, eventually in different stages of the research, in order to obtain more insight into it (see, for instance, Watkins and Giola (2015)). Or, in the words of Bryden (2006, p. XXXIX): “… triangulation is not so much a strategy for checking the validity of findings, as a means of capturing and doing justice to that [social] reality.” This in fact is the main argument in favor of mixed methods research, and the eventual difference in terms of philosophical stance is not so decisive in that case. Creswell et al. (2011) summarize this eloquently in the titles of the sections of their Chapter 1: A different method could, for instance, be used because of insufficient data, for explaining initial results, in order to generalize outcomes, or to understand a research objective.
Mixed methods research that focuses on deepening the understanding of generalizable, often quantitative research, and focuses on creating generalizable outcomes from a qualitative approach, is quite suitable for those segments of the social sciences that strive for the production of more or less directly useable results for interventions and policies. As Bigler et al. (2019) state, the use of mixed methods is almost inevitable when taking a holistic view to tackle a research problem. This is because reality is, in general, too complex to be approached one-dimensionally. Since quite a few researchers in the field of rural studies and rural sociology typically aim to serve society through policy recommendations, one might expect a large share of mixed methods research in that field. This might be strengthened by a specific characteristic of research in rural areas, the “insufficient data” problem, as noted by Creswell et al., 2011.
However, there are still many research questions in rural studies that are focused at just one important relation. Such one-dimensional questions are, in general, best served by employing one method, instead of mixed methods. Of the countless examples we mention just a few: Bassi et al. (2019) (qualitative: narrative research) and Greiner (2016)(quantitative: logistic regression).
