METHODS article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Quantitative Psychology and Measurement
Toward a Critical Dialectical Pluralist Methodology: Operationalizing the Integrated Mixed Methods Transformation Approach via a Representational–Recursive Framework
1. University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
2. The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
3. University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
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Abstract
Mixed methods research continues to privilege additive and sequential forms of integration, limiting its capacity to generate genuinely transformative and emergent knowledge. The Integrated Mixed Methods Transformation Approach (IMMTA), grounded in Critical Dialectical Pluralism (CDP) 2.0, offers a meta-transformative alternative but remains analytically under-specified. We address this limitation by advancing a representational–recursive framework that reconceptualizes data as analytic representations and integration as recursive re-representation (i.e., transformatizing). We cluster 26 IMMTAs into five domains—epistemic plurality, transformative integration, reflexivity and positionality, justice-oriented inquiry, and emergence and complexity—and demonstrate how these domains are operationalized through representational ontology, recursive analytic cycles, and meta-inferential processes. This synthesis yields a unified methodological system in which integration emerges through iterative interaction rather than aggregation. Throughout this article, the term emergence is used in two related but distinct senses. First, emergence refers to the complexity-theoretic property whereby system-level understandings arise from interactions among multiple analytic components and cannot be reduced to any single component alone. Second, emergence refers to the practical methodological process through which increasingly refined interpretations arise during recursive cycles of representation, integration, and meta-inference. Although related, the former denotes an epistemological property of integrated inquiry, whereas the latter denotes the analytic process through which such understandings develop. The framework advances mixed methods methodology by specifying mechanisms of transformation, enhancing analytic rigor, and repositioning integration as an emergent, system-level property of inquiry, with particular relevance for investigating complex psychological phenomena.
Summary
Keywords
Critical Dialectical Pluralism (CDP) 2.0, Integrated Mixed Methods Transformation Approach (IMMTA), integration, Meta-inference, Methodological theory, mixed methods research, recursion, representational analysis
Received
12 June 2026
Accepted
03 September 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Onwuegbuzie and Abrams. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Sandra Schamroth Abrams
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