This document discusses qualitative research design and different types of research designs. It begins by outlining key elements that a well-developed research design should include, such as clearly identifying the research problem, reviewing literature, specifying hypotheses, and describing data collection and analysis methods. It then discusses the importance of research design in controlling inaccuracy, efficiency, and bias. The document concludes by describing several types of qualitative research designs, including action research, case study, ethnographic research, grounded theory research, historical research, and phenomenological research.

1. Chapter 2: Qualitative Research Design

2. Research Designs
• Any well-developed design should attempt to achieve the following:
 Identify clearly the research problem and justify its selection, particularly in relation to any valid alternative designs that
could have been used
 Review and synthesise previously published literature associated with the research problem
 Clearly and explicitly specify hypotheses (i.e., research questions) central to the problem
 Effectively describe the data, which will be necessary for an adequate testing of the hypotheses and explain how such
data will be obtained
 Describe the methods of analysis to be applied to the data in determining whether or not the hypotheses are true or
false
• While preparing a research design, you should take into consideration all necessary precautions, as any error may upset
the whole project and defeat its utility and purpose. The reliability of result is proportional with research design that
constitutes a firm foundation of entire body of the research work.

3. Research Designs (contd.)
• The importance of research design in research methodology is due to the following reasons. The
research design:
 may lead to the preferred kind of study and to meaningful conclusion as it controls inaccuracy
 allows optimum efficiency and reliability and reduces wastage of time
 minimises uncertainty and confusion related to any research problem
 helps greatly in collecting research material and testing of hypothesis
 gives research the right path and controls bias and margin of errors
 provides tentative estimates of resources needed in terms of money, effort, time and manpower
 sets boundaries and helps prevent blind search, therefore maximising reliability of results
 prevents misleading conclusions and anticipates flaws and inadequacies (anticipates problems)

4. Types of Research Designs
• The research designs can be broadly classified into the following:
 Qualitative Research Designs: Qualitative research designs are by definition exploratory. These research designs are
also used for in-depth analysis of the issues of interest and explore differences related to the problem at hand.
 Action Research Design: Action research in the field of education is often used as an interactive method of collecting
information, that is, it is used to explore topics of teaching, curriculum development and student behaviour in the
classroom. Differing in purpose, emphasis and results, there are three types of action research, namely (a) individual
action research, (b) collaborative action research and (c) school-wide action research.
 Case Study: In the case study method, the aim of the researcher is neither to discover a universal, generalisable truth,
nor to study the cause-effect relationships; instead, prominence is placed on exploration and description. It is
important to mention here that the methods used to study a case can rest within a qualitative, quantitative or mixed
method investigative paradigm.

5. Types of Research Designs (contd.)
 Ethnographic Research Design: Ethnographic research design focuses on all of the events which occur in a particular
setting (rather than on just one or two types of events). In ethnographic research design, data are collected by
means of either contextual interview of the duration of 4–5 hours, or following participant for several days or a
longitudinal study lasting for several weeks or months to investigate.
 Grounded Theory Research Design: Grounded theory is developed inductively from a corpus of data. The main focus
is to invent theories with respect to social phenomena. There are three dominant grounded designs—systematic
design, emerging design and constructive design.
 Historical Research: Historical research is another type of research in which a researcher uses documents and
remains containing and narrating historical facts to study events or ideas of the past.
 Phenomenological Research Design: A phenomenological study explicates the meaning, structure and essence of
the lived experiences of a person or group of people around a specific phenomenon. The phenomenologist attempts
to understand human behaviour through the eyes of the participants in the study.