What All This about Research Design?
Dr. Nancy Agens, Head,
Technical Operations, Statswork
info@statswork.com
I. INTRODUCTION
Research design is used to address the research
topic effectively as clear as possible. In social
science studies, the main function of research
design is to ensure the evidence obtained from a
statistical test and to draw inference accurately
about the research problem. In this blog, I will
brief you about what is the research design and
its purpose(Anastas & Congress, 1999).
Before proceeding, let us understand
what the essential elements of research design
are:
 It allows to identify the research problem
unambiguously
 Literature review associated with the
problem statement
 Framing the hypothesis clearly
 Description of data
 Techniques suitable for the Statistical Data
Analysis and conclude whether the null
hypothesis framed is true or not.
Research design is the art of selecting
the relevant or suitable research techniques by a
researcher for the study. A research design
explains the types of research. Some of them are
experimental,
descriptive,
sequential,
explanatory, etc. In general, every research
design involves the following three steps; data
collection,
analysis
and
data
interpretation(Cuthill, 2002).
Research design will determine the type
of research problem what an organisation is
facing. Thus, the design stage helps the
researcher to determine which tools are helpful
and how to use them. An effective research
design usually generates less bias in the data and
improves the accuracy of the same. In that
sense, the following are the four major
characteristics of research design to be taken
care of for a good research design:
Generalization – Every researcher used
to design for the sample data collection and a
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proper research design should be suitable for
general case with similar accuracy(Paul J.
Lavrakas, 2008).
Validity – Selection of measuring tools
is the important one and it should be related to
the objective in getting valid results.
Neutrality – while setting up the study,
we have to make certain assumptions about the
data to collect, that assumptions should not
reflect bias in the research design, and it should
be neutral(Trochim, 2001).
Reliability – The research design should
be a reliable one and it should deliver standard
results.
The design of research is broadly
classified into two major groups, Qualitative and
Quantitative. Qualitative research identifies
the relationship between the data and the
mathematical
observations
whereas
the
Quantitative research make use of the
statistical results to collect valid and actionable
perceptions(Yin, 2003). The types of research
are further classified into numerous forms. Let
me give you an outline for some of them:
Descriptive
research
design
–
Descriptive research is about describing the
situation under study. The process involves
collecting, analysing and draw conclusions from
the collected data. Descriptive research is easier
to conduct and helps others to understand the
research in better manner.
Experimental research design –
Experimental research identifies the relationship
between the effect and cause of a problem
situation. It is the design where the impact of the
dependent variable can be identified using
independent relationship. This kind of research
is common in social science and psychology to
study the human behaviour of two groups.
Correlational research design –
Correlation research is not like an experimental
design, it helps to examine the association
between the two variables under study. The
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relationship between the two variables can be
identified using a correlation coefficient value.
Usually the correlation values ranges between -1
and +1. -1 means negative association and +1
means the positive association between the two
variables under study.
Explanatory research design –
Explanatory research design explores the
questions of type how, why and what research
problems.
Case study design – Case study design
is used to study a particular problem deeply than
any other design. It is used to test the theory or
model related to the real world applications.
Cross-sectional Design – A crosssectional design is similar to the correlational
design but here we can identify the relationship
between two or more variables and also it
measures the difference between the variables.
Exploratory research design – This
type of research is conducted when there is no
or few information about the problem available
in literature. The aim of this research is to
generate new ideas and develop new
methodologies or theories to the audience.
Longitudinal research design –
Longitudinal research design are conducted
when the data is of follow up study. In other
words, when the data is collected or recorded
repeatedly with regular intervals then the
longitudinal design can be used to study the
phenomena. It describes the pattern of change
and explore the reason for that change. It is
important to note that each measurements in
longitudinal study are related to the time
period(Ployhart & Vandenberg, 2010).
In summary, every research design is
selected by the researcher according to the
research phenomena. The main thing is to keep
in mind in selecting the research design is that it
should minimise the error or bias and results in
valid conclusion. Errors can be occured in
several stages of research say for example, there
may be few entries in the data is missing and
few entries are wrongly recorded. These are the
essential points to validate before processing the
data analysis. Thus, selection of research
design is always in the researcher’s hand and the
study they opted(Lavrakas, 2008).
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REFERENCES
[1] Anastas, J.W. & Congress, E.P. (1999). Philosophical issues
in doctoral education in social work: A survey of doctoral
program directors. Journal of Social Work Education.
[Online]. 35 (1). pp. 143–153. Available from:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10437797.
1999.10778953.
[2] Cuthill, M. (2002). Exploratory research: citizen
participation, local government and sustainable
development in Australia. Sustainable development.
[Online]. 10 (2). pp. 79–89. Available from:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/sd.185.
[3] Lavrakas, P. (2008). Encyclopedia of survey research
methods. [Online]. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Available from:
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Rhp1Aw
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.+Paul+J.+Lavrakas,+2008&ots=NTOYBSsCwe&sig=PZ
broJXAtF3jqTFGLFi_mKscyUI.
[4] Paul J. Lavrakas (2008). Cross-Sectional Survey Design. In:
Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods. [Online].
2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks California 91320
United States of America: Sage Publications, Inc.
Available
from:
http://methods.sagepub.com/reference/encyclopedia-ofsurvey-research-methods/n120.xml.
[5] Ployhart, R.E. & Vandenberg, R.J. (2010). Longitudinal
research: The theory, design, and analysis of change.
Journal of management. [Online]. 36 (1). pp. 94–120.
Available
from:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/014920630
9352110.
[6] Trochim, W.M. (2001). The Research Methods Knowledge
Base. [Online]. Cincinnati: Atomic Dog Publishing.
Available
from:
http://www.academia.edu/download/51724822/researchm
ethodsknowledgebase.pdf.
[7] Yin, R.K. (2003). Case Study Research: Design and
Methods. 3 rd editi. [Online]. Sage Publication. Available
from:
https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Case_Study_Rese
arch.html?id=BWea_9ZGQMwC&redir_esc=y.
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