Research Design
The most significant problem after developing a research problem is preparing the research design. Research study aids in making decisions upon issues like when, what, where, by what means, and how much, with regards to a research study or enquiry.
Research design can be defined as the planning of activities for the gathering and analysis of information in a way which aims to conglomerate relevance purpose with the economy in procedure(Marczyk, DeMatteo & Festinger, 2005).. Therefore, research study gives an outline of what one intend to undertake, in terms of formulating a hypothesis, the operational implications and data analysis.
Research design can be classified into three namely; exploratory, descriptive and causal.
Explorative research design
Explorative research design is also referred to as ‘formulative’ research design (Kothari, 2005). Explorative research is an informal, unstructured research that is done to establish background knowledge about the general nature of the research problem. Exploratory research design does not have a formal set of objectives, sampling plan or questionnaire. This research is undertaken when the researcher has less knowledge about the problem and requires additional information or more recent information. It is often undertaken at the outset of research missions.
Since gathering additional information about a problem and developing some hypothesis to test it, is the main focus of exploratory research, it is said to be informal (Burns & Bush, 2011). It is a systematic form of research but highly flexible, allows a researcher to explore the desired sources of information and to the extent necessary to gain clear insights of the problem at hand. Inbuilt flexibility in the design of a research is required because the research problem, widely defined in the beginning, is changed into one with more specific meaning in exploratory studies, which may require changes in the research procedure for gaining relevant information. There are three methods considered in the context of explorative research: surveying related literature, experience survey, and analysis on insight-stimulating occasions.
Descriptive research design
Descriptive research is conducted to answer the questions of what, who, when, how and where. Descriptive research involves describing the features of a group, or individual. It involves studies focused on predictions, with explanations of facts and characteristics about a situation, an individual or a group (Burns & Bush, 2011). Most social research studies are descriptive (Kothari, 2005).
Descriptive research design share common requirements with diagnostic research that they tend to be grouped together mostly. Descriptive research studies require the researcher clearly defining what is to be evaluated and finding enough methods of measuring it. The researcher must also have a clear definition of the population to be studied.
Since the objective of descriptive research is to obtain accurate and complete information, thorough planning must be undertaken. The research design must protect against bias and should maximize reliability, with due concern for the completion of the research. Thus, descriptive research design should be rigid and should focus attention on; formulating the research objective, designing data collection methodologies, sample selection, data collection, data analysis and reporting the results.
Causal research design
Causal research design is used to calculate the effect of a change on the existing assumptions and norms. A causal study may be described of as an understanding of a phenomenon with regards to the conditional statements; “If a, then b” (Burns & Bush, 2004). The “if–then” conditional statements become a way of manipulating the variable being studied. Humans have an inborn tendency to evaluate causal relationships. This is always present in actions and thoughts.
In undertaking a causal research, the researcher seeks causal explanations, which reflect hypotheses tests. The causal effect ensues when variations in an independent variable or a single phenomenon results, on average, to variations in the dependent variable or another phenomenon. In order to determine causal relationships, experiments are used.
References
Burns, A. C., & Bush, R. F. (2004). Marketing research: Online research applications (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall.
Burns, A. C., & Bush, R. F. (2011). Basic marketing research: Using Microsoft Excel data analysis (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Kothari, C. R. (2005). Research methodology: Methods & techniques (2nd ed.). New Delhi: New Age International (P) Ltd.
Marczyk, G. R., DeMatteo, D., & Festinger, D. (2005). Essentials of Research Design and Methodology. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons
