When a qualitatively oriented researcher moves into the arena of mixed research methods

Mixed method research is very powerful for gaining new insights and a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomena. As an intellectual and practical synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research mixed method research often provides the most informative, complete, balanced and useful research results which perhaps can explain its popularity. According to some scholars (Mason, 2006) qualitative researchers are getting increasingly involved in the development of mixed method research. Some developments in qualitative research methods, such as for instance Qualitative Comparative Analysis case'oriented quantification also contribute to an increasing trend of mixing methods in a qualitatively driven way. These newly developed methods allow for the qualitative analysis to be systematic, formal, as well as rigours and procedurally replicable, and very importantly it becomes possible to achieve the intensity intrinsic to the qualitative research while dealing with more than a handful of cases.This paper is written from the perspective of a qualitative researcher. The aim of the paper is to outline and draw an attention to the ways qualitative researcher enriched a mixed method approach. After outlining background, popularity and rationale for using mixed methods the paper elaborates on some innovative and stimulating ways of combining qualitative and quantitative research methods.