Elements Of Research Design | Purpose Of Study | Important Of Research Design |

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Chapter 6
The Research Process – Elements of Research
Design
© 2009 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
www.wileyeurope.com/college/sekaran

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Research Design

Purpose of the Study
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 Exploration
 Description
 Hypothesis Testing

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 Exploratory study:
 is undertaken when not much is known about the
situation at hand, or no information is available on
how similar problems or research issues have
been solved in the past.
 Example:
 A service provider wants to know why his
customers are switching to other service
providers?

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 Descriptive study:
 is undertaken in order to ascertain and be able to describe the
characteristics of the variables of interest in a situation.
 Example:
 A bank manager wants to have a profile of the individuals who
have loan payments outstanding for 6 months and more. It would
include details of their average age, earnings, nature of
occupation, full-time/part-time employment status, and the like.
This might help him to elicit further information or decide right
away on the types of individuals who should be made ineligible
for loans in the future.

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 Hypothesis testing:
 Studies that engage in hypotheses testing usually
explain the nature of certain relationships, or
establish the differences among groups or the
independence of two or more factors in a
situation.
 Example:
 A marketing manager wants to know if the sales of
the company will increase if he doubles the
advertising dollars.

Type of Investigation
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 Causal Study
 it is necessary to establish a definitive cause-and-effect
relationship.
 Correlational study
 identification of the important factors “associated with” the
problem.
 For Example:
 Does Smoking cause cancer? --- A casual study question
 Are smoking and cancer related?  A correlational study
 Are smoking, drinking, and chewing tobacco associated with
cancer? If so, which of these contributes most to the variance in
the dependent variable?

Study Setting
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 Contrived: artificial setting
 Closely related to Casual Study, because the
researcher tries to manipulate certain variable so
as to study the effects of such manipulation on
the dependent variable of interest
 Non-contrived: the natural environment where
work proceeds normally

Study Setting
 Field Study
 Correlational studies done in organizations are called
Field study
 Field Experiment
 Studies conducted to establish cause and effect
relationships using the same natural environment in
which employees normally function are called Field
experiment
 Lab Experiment
 The environment is controlled to study the cause and
effect relationships

Population to be Studied
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 Unit of analysis:
 Individuals
 Eg, employees motivation
 Dyads
 Two-person interactions, several two groups.
 Groups
 Organizations
 Cultures

Time Horizon
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 Cross-sectional studies
 Snapshot of constructs at a single point in time
 Data is collected just one time it could be over a period of days,
weeks, or months in order to answer a research question.
 Use of representative sample
 Longitudinal studies
 Constructs measured at multiple points in time
 Eg. The researcher might want to study employees’ behaviour before and
after a change in the top management.

The importance of research
Design
 Why is it important to consider basic research
design issues before conducting the study and
even as early as at the time of formulating the
research question?
 Ensures that the purpose for which a study is conducted is
effectively addressed.
 Some studies are focused on finding, others might be
interested in “getting some idea” of what is going on, rather
than wanting to know the “absolute truth”.
 If the rigor needed can be achieved at only high cost and if
this cost is considered too much, then the goals of
research might have to be revised or even completely
changed.
 Thus, thinking through the research design issues at the
early stages helps in averting several problematic issues
later.

The importance of research Design
(cont.)
 Why is the unit of analysis an integral part
of the research design?
 Sampling 30 individuals in an organization when the
unit of analysis is individuals, is not as problematic as
sampling 30 organizations when the unit of analysis is
organizations, or sampling 30 countries when the unit
of analysis is countries. Thus, the unit of analysis
influences other decisions such as the sampling
design, the sample size, data collection methods, etc.
 Eg. If you plan to do a research on two countries
stock market behaviour. You would look at National
stock markets not individual stock markets in those
two countries.

Exercise
 Below are three scenarios. For each, indicate how the
researcher should proceed with the following, giving
reasons:
 The purpose of the study
 The type of investigation
 The extent of researcher interference
 The study setting
 The time horizon for the study
 The unit of analysis.
 Scenario A
 Ms. Joyce Lynn, the owner of a small business (a woman’s dress boutique), has
invited a consultant to tell her how she is different from similar small businesses
within a 60-mile radius, in regard to her usage of the most modern computer
technology, sales volume, profit margin, and staff training.

Exercise Answer (cont.)
 This will be a descriptive study (describing how she
compares with the others).
 Data will be collected from small businesses on the
use of computers, sales volume, profit margin, and
training programs and comparisons made.
 Some of these descriptions might be qualitative, as for
example, in describing training methods.
 This will be a field study (using many similar small
businesses), and researcher interference will be
minimal.
 It will be a one-shot study, and the unit of analysis will
be small business systems.

Measurement: Scaling, Reliability,
Validity
 There are four types of scales
 Nominal
 Ordinal
 Interval
 Ratio

Nominal Scale
 A nominal scale is one that allows the researcher
to assign subjects to certain categories or groups.
 What is your department?
O Marketing O Maintenance O Finance
O Production O Servicing O
Personnel
O Sales O Public Relations O
Accounting
 What is your gender?
O Male
O Female

Ordinal Scale
 Not only categorizes variables in such a way as to denote
differences among various categories, it also rank-orders
categories in some meaningful way.
 The ordinal scale helps the researcher to determine the
percentage of respondents who consider interaction with
others as most important.
 Provide information on how respondents distinguish them by
rank-ordering them
 Eg. What is the highest level of education you have
completed?
O Less than High School
O High School/GED Equivalent
O College Degree
O Masters Degree
O Doctoral Degree

Interval Scale
 Whereas the nominal scale allows us only to
qualitatively distinguish groups by categorizing
them into mutually exclusive and collectively
exhaustive sets, and the ordinal scale to rank-
order the preferences, the interval scale lets
us measure the distance between any two
points on the scale.
 It measures the magnitude of the differences
in the preferences among the individual.

Interval Scale
 Circle the number that represents your feelings at this
particular moment best. There are no right or wrong answers.
Please answer every question.
1. I invest more in my work than I get out of it
disagree completely 1 2 3 4 5 agree completely
2. I exert myself too much considering what I get back in return
3. For the efforts I put into the organization, I get much in return

Ratio Scale
 Overcomes the disadvantage of the arbitrary
origin point of the interval scale, in that it has
an absolute (in contrast to an arbitrary) zero
point, which is a meaningful measurement
point.
 Most powerful of the four scales because it
has a unique zero origin and subsumes all the
properties of the other three scales.
 Eg. What is your weight

Rating Scale
 Dichotomous scale
 Is used to elicit a Yes or No answer.
 Category scale
 Uses multiple items to elicit a single response
 Semantic Differential scale
 Use to assess respondents’ attitudes toward a particular brand,
advertisement, object or individual.
 Numerical Scale
 Similar to semantic differential scale but with the numbers on a five or
seven point scale are provided
 Itemized rating scale
 A five or seven points scale with anchors as needed is provided for each
item and the respondent states the appropriate number on the side of
each item
 Likert scale
 Designed to examine how strongly subjects agree or disagree with
statements on a five-point scale.

Reliability
 Reliability of measure indicates extent to
which it is without bias and hence ensures
consistent measurement across time (stability)
and across the various items in the instrument
(internal consistency).
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Stability
 Stability: ability of a measure to remain the
same over time, despite uncontrollable testing
conditions or the state of the respondents
themselves.
 Test–Retest Reliability: The reliability coefﬁcient
obtained with a repetition of the same measure
on a second occasion.
 Parallel-Form Reliability: Responses on two
comparable sets of measures tapping the same
construct are highly correlated.
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Internal Consistency
 Internal Consistency of Measures is indicative
of the homogeneity of the items in the
measure that tap the construct.
 Interitem Consistency Reliability: This is a test of
the consistency of respondents’ answers to all the
items in a measure. The most popular test of
interitem consistency reliability is the Cronbach’s
coefﬁcient alpha.
 Split-Half Reliability: Split-half reliability reflects
the correlations between two halves of an
instrument.
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Next Week
 Please read Chapter 7 - 8
 We will try to write up your research
questionnaires, survey questions next week.

Elements Of Research Design | Purpose Of Study | Important Of Research Design |

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