A multi-stage mixed analysis was used to examine stories from 423, primarily Hispanic, undergraduate students in the United States regarding their best and poorest K-12 teachers, along with responses to 10 Likert format survey items. In the quantitative analysis phase, participants expressed strong agreement with items derived from the literature concerning characteristics of effective teachers. In the qualitative analysis phase, themes from their stories were derived as well as exemplars of their best and poorest teacher stories. Then the qualitative data were transformed or "quantitised" and statistically analysed, revealing that statistically significant differences were present in the themes by gender, whether they were a first generation college student, and the particular form of the survey completed. Thus, this investigation provides a strong model which other researchers can use as they investigate this issue and other issues using a mixed analytic approach. (Contains 11 tables.)