RESEARCH DIARIES: ENTRY 3: RESEARCH DESIGN

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 1. What is Research Design?: A research design is like a blue print to your research. It answers the questions about your research like What, Where, How much etc. It is a logical and strategic plan of your proposed research work. It is a framework for your research and includes the techniques you choose to do your research. It is about setting objectives or research and how these objectives will be realized. 


It includes the following things:

- The main point of the study / exact research problem
- The reasons for doing the study
- Types of data it will need and utilize and sources of the same and how the data will be collected
- Sampling procedure/design/size
- Data analysis tools and techniques
- The place of the study

2. Types of Research Design:

2.1 Exploratory Research Design: It seeks to explore the research questions. It does not provide any conclusion (that is why it is exploratory in nature). Sometimes, when the problem of research is not clear or properly understood, the researcher may do exploratory research to learn more about the research. Here the researcher is supposed to be flexible in terms of defining the research problem/theme. It helps one understand the topic in depth and increase the familiarity with the research problem/theme. When there is a problem, on which, not much literature is available, or not much research is done, we may choose to use the exploratory research design to gain more insights into that type of problem.

2.2 Descriptive Research Design: It describes a phenomenon or a situation or a sample under study. It does not answer "why" type of questions. It seeks to answer who, what, where, when etc. types of questions. For example, what is the current market of a product is like its demand is increasing or decreasing etc.

2.2.1 Cross-Sectional Design: When large samples from a population are studied at one point of time (and not at the different points of time), such studies are called cross-sectional studies. For example, what was the level of stress of students during May 2021 exams?

2.2.2 Longitudinal Studies: When the same samples (generally in small numbers compared to the cross-sectional design) / respondents are studied again and again at different points of time. For example, what was the level of stress of students during May 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 exams? Here the same students would be studied for measuring their stress levels at the different points of times.

Cross-sectional designs allows one to study many variables at the same point of time. For example, the age, gender, and other demographic variables of the students can be studies, with reference to their stress. But cross-sectional design should not be used identify the causality. It is because it captures the phenomenon at only one point of time, which may not be enough to establish the causality. For example, if I want to know the reasons for the stress of the students during exams, only studying the students in May 2021 may not give me concluding causal reasons for their stress. To understand the causality, longitudinal studies might be better. Like, if I study the same students for stress in May 2021-22-23 and so on, I might get to know the reasons for their stress during the exams. 

Both the above studies are the types of  observational study. According to a dictionary of medical-related terms by Cancer.gov, the definition of observational study is as follows:

 

“A type of study in which individuals are observed or certain outcomes are measured. No attempt is made to affect the outcome (for example, no treatment is given).” (Observational Study: Definitions And Variations | University of the People (uopeople.edu))


2.3 Causal Research: When cause and effect between two variables is to be established, the causal research is used. It answers "why" types of questions. 

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