This document discusses research design and provides examples of commonly used designs. It begins by defining a research design as a framework that provides procedures to obtain needed information to address research problems. It then lists typical components of a research design such as defining needed information and developing a data analysis plan. Several study designs are described including cross-sectional, before-after, longitudinal, retrospective, prospective, experimental, and quasi-experimental. Additional designs like action research, case studies, trend studies, cohort studies, panel studies, blind studies, and double-blind studies are also overviewed.

1. Chapter 3
Research Design
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2. Introduction
• A research design is a framework or blueprint
for conducting the research project.
• It gives details, of the procedures necessary for
obtaining the information needed to structure
or solve research problems.
• A research design lays the foundation for
conducting the project.
• A good research design will ensure that the
business research project is conducted
effectively.
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3. Introduction
• Typically a research design involves the following
components, or tasks.
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1. Define the information needed.
2. Design the exploratory, descriptive, and/or causal
phases of the research.
3. Specify the measurement and scaling procedures.
4. Construct and pre-test a questionnaire (interviewing
form) or an appropriate form for data collection.
5. Specify the sampling process and sample size.
6. Develop a plan of data analysis.

4. The Definition of a Research
Design
• A research design is a procedural plan, i.e. is
adopted by the researcher to answer questions validly,
objectively, accurately, and economically.
• A research design is the arrangement of conditions for
collecting and analyzing of data in a manner that
aims to combine relevance to the research purpose
with economy in procedure.
• A research design includes an outline of what the
investigator will do, from writing the objectives
research problems and their operational
implication to the final analysis of data.
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5. Functions of a Research
Design
• Research design has two main functions:
1. To detail the procedures for
undertaking a study, e.g., study design,
sampling, research instruments, and
2. To ensure these procedures are adequate
to obtain valid, objective, and accurate
answers to the research questions.
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6. Functions of a Research
Design
• A research design, therefore, should do the following:
a. Name the study design itself. i.e. “cross-sectional”, “before
and after”, “comparative” or “control experiment”;
b. Provide detail information about the following aspects of
the study-
• Who will constitute the study population?
• How will the study population be identified?
• Will a sample or the whole population be selected?
• How will consent be sought?
• What method of data collection will be used and why/
• In the case of a questionnaire, where will the responses be returned?
• How should respondents contact you if they have queries?
• In the case of interviews, where will they be conducted?
• How will ethical issues be taking care of?
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7. Selecting a Study Design
• The various designs have been classified by examining them from three different
perspectives.
– The number of contacts with the study population
• Cross-sectional study design
• The before and after study design
• The longitudinal study design
– The references period of the study
• The retrospective study design
• Prospective study design
• Prospective-retrospective study design
– The nature of the investigation
• Experimental study design
• Non-experimental study design
• Quasi/semi-experimental study design
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8. Selecting a Study Design
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9. Selecting a Study Design
Cross-Sectional Study Design
• Cross-sectional studies, also known as one-shot or status studies
are the most commonly used design in the social sciences.
• This design is be suited to studies aimed at finding out the
prevalence of a phenomenon, or issue by taking a cross-section
of picture as it stands at the time of the study.
• Cross-sectional designs involve the collection of information
from any given sample of population elements only once.
• In single cross-sectional designs only one sample of respondents
is drawn from the target population, and information is
obtained from this sample only once.
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10. Selecting a Study Design
Cross-Sectional Study Design
• These designs are also called sample survey research
designs.
• They are designed to study some phenomenon by
taking a cross-section of it at one time.
• A cross-sectional study is extremely simple in design.
• You decide what you want to find out, identify the
study population, select a sample (if you need too), and
contact your respondents to find out the required
information.
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11. Selecting a Study Design
The Before and After Study Design
• The main advantage of this design, also known as pre-test/past-
test design, is that it can measure change.
• It is the most appropriate design to measure the impact or
effectiveness of a program.
• The change is measured by comparing the difference in the
phenomenon before and after the intervention/program.
• The before and after study design is carried out by adopting
the same process as cross-sectional study except that it comprise
two cross-sectional observations, the second being undertaken
after a certain period.
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12. Selecting a Study Design
The Longitudinal Study Design
• In longitudinal designs, a fixed sample (or samples) of population
elements is measured repeatedly.
• To determine the pattern of change in relation to time, a longitudinal
study design is used.
• Longitudinal study designs are also useful when you need to collect
factual information on a longitudinal basis.
• In longitudinal studies, the study population is visited a number of
times on regular intervals, usually over one period to collect the
required information.
• The main advantage of this study is that it allows the researcher to
measure the pattern of change and obtain factual information,
requiring collection on a regular or continuous basis, thus enhancing
its accuracy.
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13. Selecting a Study Design
Retrospective Study Design
• It investigates a phenomenon, situation, problem, or
issues that have happened in the past.
• They are usually conducted either on the basis of the
data available for that period or on the basis of
respondents recall of the situation.
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14. Selecting a Study Design
Prospective Study Design
• It refers to the likely prevalence of a phenomenon,
situation, problem, attitude or outcome in the future.
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15. Selecting a Study Design
Retrospective-Prospective Study Design
• These studies focus on past trends in a phenomenon,
and study information into the future.
• In this study, a part of the data is collected
retrospectively, from existing records before the
intervention/program is introduced and then the study
population is followed to ascertain the impact of the
phenomenon.
• Trend studies-which become the basis of projections,
fall into these categories.
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16. Selecting a Study Design
Study Designs based on Nature of Investigation
• On the nature of investigation, studies can be classified as
experimental, non-experimental, and semi-experimental.
• In situation that is assumed to be a cause and effect
relationship, there are two types of studying the relationship.
– The first involves the researcher introducing the intervention
that is assumed to be the cause of change, and waiting until
it has produced or has been given sufficient time to produce-
the change.
– The second consists of the researcher observing a
phenomenon and attempting to establish what causes
brought it. In this instance, the researcher starts from the
effect(s) or outcome(s) and attempts to determine causation.
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17. Selecting a Study Design
Study Designs based on Nature of Investigation
• If a relationship is studied in the first way, starting from
the cause to establish the effects, it is classified as
experimental study.
• If the second path is followed, i.e. starting from the effects
to trace the cause- it is classified as non-experimental
study.
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18. Selecting a Study Design
• A semi-experimental design has the properties of both experimental and
non-experimental studies; part of the study may be non-experimental and
the other part experimental.
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19. Others: Some Commonly Use
Designs
1. Action research: as the name suggests, action research
comprises two components: “action” and “research”.
• Research is a means to action, either to improve your practice
or to take action to deal with a problem or an issue.
• Most of action research is concerned with improving the quality
of service. It is carried out to identify areas of concern, develop
and test alternatives, and experiment with new approaches.
• Action research seems to follow two traditions.
– The British tradition tend to view action research as a means of
improvement and advancement of practice (Carr & Kemmins, 1986),
– The American tradition it is aimed at systematic collection of data that
provides the bases for social change (Bogdan & Biklem, 1992).
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20. Others: Some Commonly Use
Designs
• There are two focuses of action research:
1. An existing program or intervention is studied in order to
identify possible areas of improvement in terms of enhanced
efficacy and/or efficiency. The findings become the basis of
bringing about changes.
2. This is where a professional thinks that there is an
unattended problem or unexplained issue in the community
or among the client groups. Through research, evidenced is
gathered to justify the introduction of a new service or
intervention.
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21. Others: Some Commonly Use
Designs
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22. Others: Some Commonly Use
Designs
2. Case Study Method: - The case study method is an approach to
study a social phenomenon through a thorough analysis of an
individual case.
• The case may be a person, group, episode, process, community,
and organization, social or any other unit of social life.
• The purpose of the case study method is to obtain information
from one or a few situations that are similar to the researcher’s
problem situation.
• The primary advantage of the case study is that an entire
organization or entity can be investigated in depth and with
meticulous attention to detail.
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23. Others: Some Commonly Use
Designs
2. Case Study Method: -
• Researchers, however, have no standard procedures to follow.
• They must be flexible and attempt to glean information and
insights wherever they find them.
• The freedom to search for whatever data an investigator deems
important makes the success of any case study highly
dependent on the alertness, creativity, intelligence, and
motivation of the individual performing the case analysis.
• Like all exploratory research, the results from case analysis
should be seen as tentative.
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24. Others: Some Commonly Use
Designs
3. Trend studies: - If you want to map changes over a
period, a trend study is the most appropriate method
of investigation.
• Trend analysis enables you to find out what has
happened in the past, what is happening now, and
what is likely to happen in the future in a population
group.
• Trend studies are also useful in forecasting trends by
extrapolating from present and past trends. This
design can be classified under retrospective-
prospective studies.
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25. Others: Some Commonly Use
Designs
4. Cohort Studies: - Cohort studies are based upon the existence
of a common characteristic such as year of birth, graduation
or marriage, within subgroup of a population.
• Suppose you want to study the employment pattern of a batch
of accountants who graduated from a university in 1995, or
study the fertility behavior of women who were married in
1990.
• To study the accountants career paths you would contact all the
accountants who graduated from the university in 1995 to find
out their employment histories.
• Similarly, you would investigate the fertility history of those
women who married in 1990. Both of these studies could be
carried out either as cross-sectional or longitudinal designs.
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26. Others: Some Commonly Use
Designs
5. Panel Studies:
• Suppose you want to study the changes in the pattern
of expenditure on household items in a community. To
do this, you would select a few families to find out the
amount the amount they spend every fortnight on
household items.
• You would keep collecting the same information from
the same families over a period of time to ascertain the
changes in the expenditure pattern. Such a study is
called a panel study.
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27. Others: Some Commonly Use
Designs
5. Panel Studies:
• Trend, cohort and panel studies are similar except that
panel studies are longitudinal and prospective in
nature and collect information from the same
respondents.
• In trend and cohort studies the information can be
collected in a cross-sectional manner and the
observation points can retrospectively constructed,
whereas in a panel study the observations are made
over a period of time and are prospective in nature.
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28. Others: Some Commonly Use
Designs
6. Blind Studies: - The concept of a blind study can be
used with comparable and placebo experimental
designs and is applied to studies measuring the
effectiveness of a drug.
• In a blind study, the study population does not know
whether it is getting real or fake treatment.
• The main objective of designing a blind study is to
isolate the placebo effect: the psychological effect on
the recovery process of a patient’s knowledge that s/he
is receiving the treatment.
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29. Others: Some Commonly Use
Designs
7. Double-blind Studies: - The concept of double-blind
study is very similar to that of a blind study except
that it also tries to eliminate the researcher’s bias: the
researcher does not know the identity of
experimental and placebo groups.
• In a double-blind study neither the researcher nor the
study participants know who is receiving real and who
is receiving fake treatment.
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30. Thank You!
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