This year’s winner for the Mixed Methods Research SIG Outstanding Mixed Methods Dissertation Award is Dr. Pamela M. Wesely, a Curriculum and Instruction (SLC) Ph.D. graduate (2009). Her adviser was Diane Tedick, and her dissertation was titled: The Language Learning Motivation of Early Adolescent French and Spanish Elementary Immersion Program Graduates.
Dr. Wesely is now Assistant Professor, Foreign Language and ESL Education, The University of Iowa.

This award recognizes an individual whose dissertation makes an outstanding contribution to the field of mixed methods research. The successful recipient will receive recognition by the SIG in the form of a $1,000 honorarium and will be invited to present the dissertation study at the SIG’s Business Meeting at the 2011 AERA conference.
A panel of judges comprising experts in the field of mixed methods research evaluated the submissions this year based on the following criteria: quality of the completed research, contribution to theory and practice of mixed methods research, originality and appropriateness of the utilized mixed methods approach, quality and depth of resulting meta-inferences, and value of the findings in contributing to knowledge in education.