Planning And Designing A Research Study

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Youfirst need to think and write about your epistemology: this is how you understand knowledge, research, science and what can be understood about the world. Are you a positivist, structural realist or post-positivist? All of these things are important to understand, and in most qualitative research it is necessary to situate your identity as a researcher within one (or more) of these philosophical turns. From this should stem the research questions you have, how you can answer them, the methods you choose, and your interpretation and application of data, be it qualitative or otherwise. Thus it is a key kernel of what will grow into your research design, and how it all flows from your theoretical underpinnings.

You might find that something similar has been done, possibly in a different population group, or with a different focus. But you might have a good reason to suspect that something would be different in a different population, or with an in-depth qualitative approach there might be something more complicated underneath that you could investigate to explain other findings.

A good literature review should start by looking at both qualitative and quantitative research, because a large quantitative study might be really good context for a follow-on qualitative study that can explain trends or questions and unexpected findings in the research.

Now, you might be thinking you are going to collect your own data, but secondary data analysis is also a good option to consider. There are lots of choices, including social media, qualitative data archives, documents and sources of data from to colleagues. So have a quick search for other data sources that you can analyse first, it might be these will do most of the work for you, or you can complement them with some smaller primary qualitative research. Our post on using secondary qualitative data can help you find some sources, and notes some issues to be aware of.

Qualitative analysis takes a long time. It obviously depends greatly on the type and amount of data, but you should schedule weeks and probably months for this task. You should also consider if you are going to transcribe your data from audio recordings. This can take weeks itself if you are doing it yourself, or you might consider sending to a professional to transcribe. Even automated transcription can look like it will save a lot of time, but always has errors, and you need to read through these carefully and fix mis-hearings. You should also set aside time before analysing your data to read it slowly and carefully so you have a good idea what is across the whole data set.

Hopefully, this blog post has made a good case for considering holistic research design when planning a qualitative project, but what should this look like? Generally it will be a working document, either on paper or a word-processor document, with at least the key headings above, and some basic information under each section. This can get filled in as you go through the process, and although your institution may have a template or guideline for a similar document, most of the key points above should still be considered.

Finally, if you are applying for funding at any time, be it for a masters/PhD studentship, placement, grant, scholarship or award, you will almost certainly need to share some kind of research plan or proposal, and considering all the aspects of design here will make that a lot easier.

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Research design is the framework of research methods and techniques chosen by a researcher to conduct a study. The design allows researchers to sharpen the research methods suitable for the subject matter and set up their studies for success.

Creating a research topic explains the type of research (experimental, survey research, correlational, semi-experimental, review) and its sub-type (experimental design, research problem, descriptive case-study).

Impactful research usually creates a minimum bias in data and increases trust in the accuracy of collected data. A design that produces the slightest margin of error in experimental research is generally considered the desired outcome. The essential elements are:

The above factors affect how respondents answer the research questions, so they should balance all the above characteristics in a good design. If you want, you can also learn about Selection Bias through our blog.

A researcher must clearly understand the various types to select which model to implement for a study. Like the research itself, the design of your analysis can be broadly classified into quantitative and qualitative.

In summary or analysis, the step of qualitative research is more exploratory and focuses on understanding the subjective experiences of individuals, while quantitative research is more focused on objective data and statistical analysis.

1. Descriptive: In a descriptive composition, a researcher is solely interested in describing the situation or case under their research study. It is a theory-based design method created by gathering, analyzing, and presenting collected data. This allows a researcher to provide insights into the why and how of research. Descriptive design helps others better understand the need for the research. If the problem statement is not clear, you can conduct exploratory research.

2. Experimental: Experimental research establishes a relationship between the cause and effect of a situation. It is a causal research design where one observes the impact caused by the independent variable on the dependent variable. For example, one monitors the influence of an independent variable such as a price on a dependent variable such as customer satisfaction or brand loyalty. It is an efficient research method as it contributes to solving a problem.

The independent variables are manipulated to monitor the change it has on the dependent variable. Social sciences often use it to observe human behavior by analyzing two groups. Researchers can have participants change their actions and study how the people around them react to understand social psychology better.

3. Correlational research: Correlational research is a non-experimental research technique. It helps researchers establish a relationship between two closely connected variables. There is no assumption while evaluating a relationship between two other variables, and statistical analysis techniques calculate the relationship between them. This type of research requires two different groups.

A correlation coefficient determines the correlation between two variables whose values range between -1 and +1. If the correlation coefficient is towards +1, it indicates a positive relationship between the variables, and -1 means a negative relationship between the two variables.

4. Diagnostic research: In diagnostic design, the researcher is looking to evaluate the underlying cause of a specific topic or phenomenon. This method helps one learn more about the factors that create troublesome situations.

QuestionPro offers a comprehensive solution for researchers looking to conduct research. With its user-friendly interface, robust data collection and analysis tools, and the ability to integrate results from multiple sources, QuestionPro provides a versatile platform for designing and executing research projects.

Our robust suite of research tools provides you with all you need to derive research results. Our online survey platform includes custom point-and-click logic and advanced question types. Uncover the insights that matter the most.

The design of a piece of research refers to the practical way in which the research was conducted according to a systematic attempt to generate evidence to answer the research question. The term "research methodology" is often used to mean something similar, however different writers use both terms in slightly different ways: some writers, for example, use the term "methodology" to describe the tools used for data collection, which others (more properly) refer to as methods.

The design of the research involves consideration of the best method of collecting data to provide a relevant and accurate test of your thesis, one that can establish causality if required (see What type of study are you undertaking?), and one that will enable you to generalise your findings.

Although management research is much concerned with observation of humans and their behaviour, to a certain extent the epistemological framework derives from that of science. Positivism assumes the independent existence of measurable facts in the social world, and researchers who assume this perspective will want to have a fairly exact system of measurement. On the other hand, interpretivism assumes that humans interpret events and researchers employing this method will adopt a more subjective approach.

Karin Klenke provides an exploratory study of issues of gender in management decisions in Gender influences in decision-making processes in top management teams (Management Decision, Volume 41 Number 10)

Damien McLoughlin provides a descriptive study of action learning as a case study in There can be no learning without action and no action without learning in (European Journal of Marketing, Volume 38 Number 3/4)

Martin et al. examined ad zipping and repetition in Remote control marketing: how ad fast-forwarding and ad repetition affect consumers (Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Volume 20 Number 1) with a number of hypotheses e.g. that people are more likely to remember an ad that they have seen repeatedly.

The most important issue here is that the design you use should be appropriate to your initial question. Implicit within your question will be issues of size, breadth, relationship between variables, how easy is it to measure variables etc.

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