THE RESEARCH DESIGN

All studies have certain procedures in common – a statement of the problem, collection and analysis of data, and conclusion, but each type of research has its own distinct design in terms of methods to be used including sampling, data gathering and data analysis.  Each research type is designed to answer a different type of question and represent a readily identifiable method or strategy uniquely different from the others.

The research design constitute the blueprint for the collection, measurement and analysis if data (Vockell, 1983,p.150).  In other words, in includes the plan, structure and strategy of inverstigation conceived so as to obtain answers to research questions and to control variance (Kerlinger, 1985,p.300).

The plan is the overall scheme or program of what the investigator will do from the writing the hypothesis to the final analysis of data.  The structure of the research is the outline, the scheme, the paradigm or model of the relations among the variables of a study.

The strategy includes the methods to be used to gather and analyze the data.  It implies how the research objectives will be reached and how the problems encountered in the research will be tackled.

Based on these components, a research design approximates an expression of both the structure of the research problem and the plan of investigation used to obtain empirical evidence on the relations of the variables in the problem.

Ackoff (1952,p.10) gives the distinction between design and methodology.

Whereas design exposes research decisions to evaluation before they are carried out, methodology actually makes the evaluation and exposes the method used at arriving at these design decisions so that it too can be evaluated beforehand.

Kerlinger (1986,p.280) explained that research designs are made to enable researchers to answer research questions as  validly, objectively, accurately and economically as possible.  Research plans are deliberately and specifically conceived and executed to bring empirical evidence to bear on the research problem.  The design also tells what observations to make, how to make them, and how to analyze the quantitative representations of the observations.  An adequate design suggest how many observations should be made and which variables are active and which are attribute.  We can then act to manipulate the active variables and then categorize and measure the attribute variables.  A design tells what type of statistical analysis to use and outlines possible conclusions to be drawn from the statistical analysis.