Concurrent Triangulation Design

The researcher collects both quantitative and qualitative data concurrently, and then compares the two databases to determine if there is a convergence, difference, or some combination of the two. This model generally uses separate quantitative and qualitative methods as a means to offset the weaknesses inherent within one method with the strengths of the other (or conversely, the strength of one adds to the strength of the other). The mixing during this approach, usually found in an interpretation or discussion section, is to actually merge the data (i.e. transform one type of data into the other type of data so that they can be compared easily) or integrate or compare the results of two databases side by side in a discussion. The concurrent data collection results in a shorter data collection time period as compared to the one of the sequential approaches because both the qualitative and quantitative data are gathered at the same time at the research site. This model also has a number of limitations. It requires great effort and expertise to adequately study a phenomenon with two separate methods. It can also be difficult to compare the results of two analyses using different forms of data.