Research Design

Research Design - Definition

“A research design is the arrangement of conditions for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine relevance to the research purpose in procedure”

Research Design – A Definition…

More explicitly:i. What is the study about?ii. Why is the study being conducted?iii. Where will the study be carried out?iv. What type of data is required?v. Where can the required data be found?vi. What period of time will the study include?vii. What will be the sample design?viii. What techniques of data collection will used?ix. How will the data be analyzed?x. In what style will the report be prepared?

Research DesignResearch Design has the following parts:

i. The Sampling Design – which deals with the method of selecting items to be observed for the given study

ii. The Observational Design – which relates to the conditions under which the observations are to be made.

iii. The Statistical Design – which concerns with the question of how many items are to be observed and how the information and data gathered are to be analyzed

iv. The Operational Design – which deals with the techniques by which the procedures specified in the sampling, statistical and observational designs can be carried out

Significance of research design

Smooth & efficient sailing (sets boundaries & prevents blind

search

Yields maximum information (avoids collection of

unnecessary data)

Costs least in terms of effort, time & money

Maximizes reliability of results

Avoids misleading conclusions & thoughtless exercise

Helps organizing ones ideas

Features of a research Design: 

It is plan that specifies the sources and types of

information relevant to the research problem.

It is the strategy specifying which approach will be used

for gathering and analyzing the data.

It includes the time and cost budget since most of the

studies are done under these two constraints.

In brief the research design must at least contain:

A clear statement of research problem.

Procedures and techniques used for gathering the

data.

The population to be studied.

Methods to be used in processing and analyzing

data.

Types of Research Design

Three traditional categories of research design:

ExploratoryDescriptiveCausal/Experimental

Exploratory research design

1. Exploratory

Initial research conducted to clarify and define the nature of the problem. Exploratory research is usually conducted when the researcher does not know much about the problem and needs additional information or desires new or more recent information.

The purpose of exploratory research is to know the 

unknown It is conducted in order to find out causes/reasons

behind a problem.

The objective of exploratory research is to discover new ideas.

The secondary/published data can be used for

exploratory research as such data are easily available.

Example

A service provider wants to know why his customers are switching to other service providers

methods available to conduct exploratory research

Secondary Data Analysis• Surveys• Focus Groups• Projective Techniques

Descriptive research method

2. Descriptive Research

Research conducted to describe characteristics such as age, sex, occupation, income or education of a population or a phenomenon. Descriptive research is undertaken to provide answers to questions of who, what, where, when, and how

example

A cereal company may find its sales declining. On the basis of market feedback the company may hypothesis that teenage children do not eat its cereal for breakfast. A descriptive study can then be designed to test this hypothesis.

Two basic classifications of descriptive research:

I. Cross-sectional studies

Cross-sectional studies form a class of research methods that involve observation of all of a population, or a representative subset, at one specific point in time.

Features :Cross sectional study is an observational one.We can compare different population groups at a

single point in time. i-e consider it as a snap shot and findings are drawn from whatever fits into the frame.

Advantage:Advantage of cross sectional study is that it allows

researcher to compare different variables at same time

e.g we could look at age, gender, income, education level at same time

example

A drug company desirous of investing in research for a new headache pill conducted a survey among headachy people to see how many of them would be interested in trying the new pill.

There are further classifications of cross-sectional studies which are:

I. single cross sectionalOne of the types of cross-sectional designs in which only one sample of respondents is drawn from the target population, and information is obtained from this sample once.

II. multiple cross sectional

A type of research design in which two or more samples of respondents and information from each sample is obtained only once.

II. Longitudinal studies

A longitudinal study is research study that involves repeated observations of the same variables over long periods of time

Features:It is also a type of observational study.In a longitudinal study, researchers conduct

several observations of the same subjects over a period of time, sometimes lasting many years

Advantage:

The advantage of a longitudinal study is that researchers are able to detect developments or changes in the characteristics of the target population at both the group and the individual level.

A longitudinal study is more likely to suggest cause-and-effect relationships than a cross-sectional study.

example

A marketing manager is interested in tracing the pattern of sales of a particular product in four different regions of the country on a quarterly basis for the next 2 years.

3. Causal/Experimental Research:

Research conducted to identify the cause and effect relationship among variables. It explains the extent of relationship between variables. Causal research attempts to establish that when we do one thing, another thing will follow

Example

Does smoking cause cancer?

.

research design

casual research descriptive research

Cross-sectio

nal studie

s

single cross sectional

multiple cross sectional

Longitudinal studie

s

exploratory research