Designing Research Design - a discussion agenda

Based on Collis and Hussey (2003), I provide the following agenda for discussion of Research Design:

1. Steps to identify a research problem (refer to Figure 5.2 of Collis and Hussey (2003; pg. 116).)
2. Data availability assessment
3. Time, cost and knowledge gap assessment
4. Formulate research problem(s) and purpose(s)
5. Determine the unit of analysis
6. Relate your research design to a specific theoretical framework
7. Formulate research questions and/or hypotheses
8. Anchor  your  research design to specific research philosophies
9. Discuss and define key terms used in the research project
10. Define scope of your research
11. Formulate your research methodology
12. Describe your expected research outcome(s)
13. Describe your research design in terms of a project plan (e.g. in the form of a GANTT chart)

I suggest you to read Chapte 5 of Collis and Hussey (2003; Chapter 5) as well as to study a few academic articles for examples on Research Design. Similarly, Adams et al. (2007) discuss Research Design from a Quantitative Research Methods perspective.

Below is my handwritten note on this topic:

Quantitative research evaluation criteria

• Reliability: whether the results of a study are repeatable
• Replicability: whether a study is replicable [researchers need to spell out study procedures clearly]
• Measurement validity: mainly related to quantitative research; also referred to as construct validity [whether a measure that is devised of a concept does reflect the concept that it is supposed to be examining]
• Internal validity: whether a conclusion that incorporates a causal relationship is valid.
• External validity: Whether the result of a study can be generalized to other contexts.
• Ecological validity: whether the findings of a study are applicable to natural social settings.

Qualitative research evaluation criteria

• Credibility: Are findings believable
• Transferability: Are findings applicable in other contexts
• Dependability: Are findings apply at other times
• Confirmability: Has researcher allow personal values to affect the findings

Finally, I would suggest that Research Design can be conveniently depicted in the form of a GANTT Chart or a flow chart, as follows:

 Such a research design should be theory-driven, based on ideas drawn from the Literature Review exercise in the dissertation project work.



References

1. Collis, J. and Hussey, R. (2003) "Chapter 5: Determining the research design", Business Research, Palgrave
2. Adams, J., Khan, H.T.A., Raeside, R. and White, D. (2007) "Chapter 5: Sampling" Research Methods for Graduate Business and Social Science Students, Response, Business books from SAGE.
3. Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2007) "Chapter 2: Research designs" Business Research Methods, Oxford University Press.