Introduction to Research Design

If you are clear about your research problem, your achievement is worth praising. You have crossed one of the most important and difficult sections of your research journey. Having decided what you want to study, you now need to determine how you are going to conduct your study. There are a number of questions that need to be answered before you can proceed with your journey. What procedures will you adopt to obtain answers to research questions? How will you carry out the tasks needed to complete the different components of the research process? What should you do and what should you not do in the process of undertaking the study? Basically, answers to these questions constitute the core of a research design.

What is a research design?

A research design is a plan, structure and strategy of investigation so conceived as to obtain answers to research questions or problems. The plan is the complete scheme or programme of the research. It includes an outline of what the investigator will do from writing the hypotheses and their operational implications to the final analysis of data.

A traditional research design is a blueprint or detailed plan for how a research study is to be completed – operationalizing variables so they can be measured, selecting a sample of interest to study, collecting data to be used as a basis for testing hypotheses, and analysing the results.

A research design is a procedural plan that is adopted by the researcher to answer questions validly, objectively, accurately and economically. According to Selltiz, Deutsch and Cook, ‘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 with economy in procedure’.

Through a research design you decide for yourself and communicate to others your decisions regarding what study design you propose to use, how you are going to collect information from your respondents, how you are going to select your respondents, how the information you are going to collect is to be analysed and how you are going to communicate your findings. In addition, you will need to detail in your research design the rationale and justification for each decision that shapes your answers to the ‘how’ of the research journey. In presenting your rationale and justification you need to support them critically from the literature reviewed. You also need to assure yourself and others that the path you have proposed will yield valid and reliable results.

The functions of a research design

The above definitions suggest that a research design has two main functions. The first relates to the identification and/or development of procedures and logistical arrangements required to undertake a study, and the second emphasises the importance of quality in these procedures to ensure their validity, objectivity and accuracy. Hence, through a research design you:

• conceptualise an operational plan to undertake the various procedures and tasks required to complete your study;
• ensure that these procedures are adequate to obtain valid, objective and accurate answers to the research questions. Kerlinger calls this function the control of variance.

Let us take the first of these functions. The research design should detail for you, your supervisor and other readers all the procedures you plan to use and the tasks you are going to perform to obtain answers to your research questions. One of the most important requirements of a research design is to specify everything clearly so a reader will understand what procedures to follow and how to follow them. A research design, therefore, should do the following:

• Name the study design per se – that is, ‘cross-sectional’, ‘before-and-after’, ‘comparative’, ‘control experiment’ or ‘random control’.
• Provide detailed information about the following aspects of the study:
  • Who will constitute the study population?
  • How will the study population be identified?
  • Will a sample or the whole population be selected?
  • If a sample is selected, how will it be contacted?
  • How will consent be sought?
  • What method of data collection will be used and why?
  • In the case of a questionnaire, where will the responses be returned?
  • How should respondents contact you if they have queries?

Ranjit Kumar "Research methodology. Step-by-step guide for beginners".