How to make Research Design?

Research Design

The Selection of a Research Design 

Research designs are plans and procedures for research that span the decisions from broad assumptions to detailed methods of data collection and analysis. This plan involves several decisions, and they need not be taken in the order in which they make sense to me and the order of their presentation here. The overall decision involves which design should be used to study a topic. Informing this decision should be the worldview assumptions the researcher brings to the study; procedures of inquiry (called strategies); and specific methods of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. The selection of a research design is also based on the nature of the research problem or issue being addressed, the researchers’ personal experiences, and the audiences for the study.

The three types of designs

The types of designs are advanced: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods. Unquestionably, the three approaches are not as discrete as they first appear. Qualitative and quantitative approaches should not be viewed as polar opposites or dichotomies; instead, they represent different ends on a continuum. Often the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research is framed in terms of using words (qualitative) rather than numbers (quantitative) or using closed-ended questions (quantitative hypotheses) rather than open-ended questions (qualitative interview questions).

Qualitative research is a means for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem.

Quantitative research is a means for testing objective theories by examining the relationship among variables.

Mixed methods research is an approach to inquiry that combines or associates both qualitative and quantitative forms. It involves philosophical assumptions, the use of qualitative and quantitative approaches, and the mixing of both approaches in a study. 

Criteria for selecting a research design 

Given the possibility of qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods approaches, what factors affect a choice of one approach over another for the design of a proposal? Added to worldview, strategy, and methods would be the research problem, the personal experiences of the researcher, and the audience(s) for whom the report will be written.

The Research Problem

 A research problem is an issue or concern that needs to be addressed (e.g., the issue of racial discrimination). Certain types of social research problems call for specific approaches. For example, if the problem calls for (a) the identification of factors that influence an outcome, (b) the utility of an intervention, or (c) understanding the best predictors of outcomes, then a quantitative approach is best. It is also the best approach to use to test a theory or explanation. On the other hand, if a concept or phenomenon needs to be understood because little research has been done on it, then it merits a qualitative approach.

Personal Experiences

Personal Experiences Researchers’ own personal training and experiences also influence their choice of approach.

In planning a research project, researchers need to identify whether they will employ a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods design. This design is based on bringing together a worldview or assumptions about research, the specific strategies of inquiry, and research methods. Decisions about the choice of a design are further influenced by the research problem or issue being studied, the personal experiences of the researcher, and the audience for whom the researcher writes.

Writing the proposal

It is helpful to consider the topics that will go into a proposal. All the topics need to be interrelated and provide a cohesive picture of the entire project.

1. What do readers need, to better understand your topic? 

2. What do readers know little about in terms of your topic? 

3. What do you propose to study? 

4. What is the setting and who are the people that you will study? 

5. What methods do you plan to use to provide data? 

6. How will you analyze the data? 

7. How will you validate your findings? 

8. What ethical issues will your study present?

Abstracting Studies

When researchers write reviews of the literature for proposed studies, they locate articles and develop brief abstracts of the articles that comprise the review. An abstract is a brief review of the literature (typically in a short paragraph) that summarizes major elements, to enable a reader to understand the basic features of the article. In developing an abstract, researchers need to consider what material to extract and summarize. This is important information when reviewing perhaps dozens, if not hundreds, of studies. A good summary of a research study reported in a journal might include the following points:

• Mention the problem being addressed. 
• State the central purpose or focus of the study.  
• Briefly state information about the sample, population, or subjects. 
• Review key results that relate to the proposed study.

The Use of Theory 

One component of reviewing the literature is to determine what theories might be used to explore the questions in a scholarly study. In quantitative research, researchers often test theories as an explanation for answers to their questions. 

The Introduction 

After having decided on a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods approach and after conducting a preliminary literature review and deciding on a format for a proposal, the next step in the process is to design or plan the study. The process of organizing and writing out ideas begins, starting with designing an introduction to a proposal. The introduction establishes the issue or concern leading to the research by conveying information about a problem. Because it is the initial passage in a study or proposal, special care must be given to writing it.

 

The Purpose Statement 

The last section of the introduction is to presents a purpose statement that establishes the intent of the entire research study. It is the most important statement in the entire study, and it needs to be clearly and specifically presented. From it, all other aspects of the research follow. This passage is called the purpose statement because it conveys the overall intent of a proposed study in a sentence or several sentences. 

The research objectives

The research objective of a research proposal or scientific article defines the direction or content of a research investigation. Without the research objectives, the proposal or research paper is in disarray. It is like a fisherman riding on a boat without any purpose and with no destination in sight. Therefore, at the beginning of any research venture, the researcher must be clear about what he or she intends to do or achieve in conducting a study.

“What does the researcher want or hope to achieve at the end of the research project.”

Research Questions 

Investigators place signposts to carry the reader through a plan for a study. The first signpost is the purpose statement, which establishes the central direction for the study. From the broad, general-purpose statement, the researcher narrows the focus to specific questions to be answered or predictions based on hypotheses to be tested.

Research significance

The significance of a study must be stated in the Introduction section of your research paper. While stating the significance, you must highlight how your research will be beneficial to the development of science and society in general. You can first outline the significance in a broader sense by stating how your research will contribute to the broader problem in your field and gradually narrow it down to demonstrate the specific group that will benefit from your research. While writing the significance of your study, you must answer questions like:

• Why should your research be published?
• How will this study contribute to the development of your field?

 

Review of the Literature 

Besides selecting a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods approach, the proposal designer also needs to review the literature about a topic. This literature review helps to determine whether the topic is worth studying, and it provides insight into ways in which the researcher can limit the scope to a needed area of inquiry.

The research topic

 Before considering what literature to use in a project, first identify a topic to study and reflect on whether it is practical and useful to undertake the study. The topic is the subject or subject matter of a proposed study, such as “faculty teaching,” “organizational creativity,” or “psychological stress.” Describe the topic in a few words or in a short phrase. The topic becomes the central idea to learn about or to explore.

The literature review 

Once the researcher identifies a topic that can and should be studied, the search can begin for related literature on the topic. The literature review accomplishes several purposes. It shares with the reader the results of other studies that are closely related to the one being undertaken. It relates a study to the larger, ongoing dialogue in the literature, filling in gaps and extending prior studies. It provides a framework for establishing the importance of the study as well as a benchmark for comparing the results with other findings. All or some of these reasons may be the foundation for writing the scholarly literature into a study. In qualitative research, inquirers use the literature in a manner consistent with the assumptions of learning from the participant, not prescribing the questions that need to be answered from the researcher’s standpoint. One of the chief reasons for conducting a qualitative study is that the study is exploratory. This usually means that not much has been written about the topic or the population being studied, and the researcher seeks to listen to participants and build an understanding based on what is heard.

Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

• Begin by identifying keywords, useful in locating materials in an academic library at a college or university. These keywords may emerge in identifying a topic or may result from preliminary readings.
•  Next, go to the library and begin searching the catalog for holdings (i.e., journals and books) with these keywords in mind. Most major libraries have computerized databases, and I suggest you focus initially on journals and books related to the topic. 
• Initially, try to locate about 50 reports of research in articles or books related to research on your topic. Set a priority on the search for journal articles and books because they are easy to locate and obtain. 
• Skim this initial group of articles or chapters, and duplicate those that are central to your topic. Throughout this process, simply try to obtain a sense as to whether the article or chapter will make a useful contribution to your understanding of the literature. 
• As you identify useful literature, begin designing a literature map. 
• As you put together the literature map, also begin to draft summaries of the most relevant articles. These summaries are combined into the final literature review that you write for your proposal or research study. 
• After summarizing the literature, assemble the literature review, structuring it thematically or organizing it by important concepts. End the literature review with a summary of the major themes and suggest how your particular study further adds to the literature.

The materials and methods

The materials and methods section describes in detail all the materials that have been used to conduct a study as well as the procedures that are undertaken. As research writing should be orderly and organized therefore the materials in each of its sub-section should be presented in a logical manner. In each section of the materials and methods start with the most important procedure and go on to the least important. Also, provide headings and subheadings to make each subpart of the materials and methods section clear and understandable. There are various reasons why you should state all the materials and methods in detail:

1.      it enables the readers to evaluate the appropriateness of your research methodology,

2.      it helps you prove the reliability and validity of your results,

3.      it enables other researchers to replicate your research exactly the same way you did it,

Theoretical framework

After you start your research, you have to explore what theories and models other researchers have already developed. The goal of a theoretical framework is to present and explain this information. There may be many different theories about your topic, so the theoretical framework also involves evaluating, comparing, and selecting the most relevant ones. By “framing” your research within a clearly defined field, you make the reader aware of the assumptions that inform your approach, showing the rationale behind your choices. This part of your research lays the foundations that will support your analysis, helping you interpret your results and make broader generalizations.

Examples of theoretical frameworks in research

The same research topic can be approached very differently within different theoretical frameworks:

• In literature, a scholar using postmodernist literary theory would analyze The Great Gatsby differently than a scholar using Marxist literary theory.

Analysis in Research Papers

To analyze means to break a topic or concept down into its parts in order to inspect and understand it, and to restructure those parts in a way that makes sense to you. In an analytical research paper, you do research to become an expert on a topic so that you can restructure and present the parts of the topic from your own perspective. Data analysis is an ongoing process during research. It involves analyzing participant information, and researchers typically employ general analysis steps as well as those steps found within a specific strategy of inquiry. Data analysis involves collecting open-ended data. The process of data analysis involves making sense out of text and image data. It involves preparing the data for analysis, conducting different analyses, moving deeper and deeper into understanding the data (some qualitative researchers like to think of this as peeling back the layers of an onion), representing the data, and making an interpretation of the larger meaning of the data.

Conclusion

The conclusion of a research paper is where you wrap up your ideas and leave the reader with a strong final impression. It has several key goals:

• Restate the research problem addressed in the paper
• Summarize your overall arguments or findings
• Suggest the key takeaways from your paper

The content of the conclusion varies depending on whether your paper presents the results of original empirical research or constructs an argument through engagement with sources. The first task of your conclusion is to remind the reader of your research problem. You will have discussed this problem in-depth throughout the body, but now the point is to zoom back out from the details to the bigger picture. While you are restating a problem you’ve already introduced, you should avoid phrasing it identically to how it appeared in the introduction. Ideally, you’ll find a novel way to circle back to the problem from the more detailed ideas discussed in the body. Having zoomed back in on the problem, it’s time to summarize how the body of the paper went about addressing it, and what conclusions this approach led to.

Referencing

It is necessary to explain where one’s sources come from, Referencing serves as signs pointing to any kind of information you use. When it comes to citing - it is a means to show the readers that some information from your paperwork comes not from you. References show that you have carefully reviewed the relevant literature and are now contributing something novel to the academic community. You establish authority and credibility when you can critically assess other literature and distinguish your findings from previous works (if any exist). We emphasize “critically assess” in the last sentence because references are only as good as you apply them to your research. Therefore, the famous adage “quality over quantity” is the key to deciding how many references are sufficient.

Keywords;    Research Design, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Research