When you write a chapter on Research Design in dissertaton report, you need to explain your reseaarch design as well as justify it. To start with, your research design should be theory-driven, with inputs from your chapter on Literature Review, and it should also be related to your research objectives and research questions.
Next, you need to discuss the philosophical stance of your research research, i.e. positivist, realist or interpretivist. Different research philosophies favour different research research strategies. Then, you justify your research design in terms of the following criteria:
1. internal validity (re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_validity)
2. external validity (re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_validity)
3. construct validity (re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construct_validity)
4. reliability (re: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/reliable.php)
5. feasibility (e.g. within various resources constraints)
6. research ethics (re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_ethics)
It is clear that different research philosophies attach different importances on different research design criteria. Most likely, you will also make use of these research design criteria to evaluate your research findings in the Chapter on "Findings and Analysis". Finally, you need to evaluate your research project achievement also in terms of these criteria. Thus, when studying Research Methods, make sure you are familiar with these concepts and how they have been used in various types of research projects by others.
Reference
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2003) Research Methods for Business Students, Prentice Hall.
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