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Research Design
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Binu Peniel
United Theological Seminary
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Research Design
INTRODUCTION
Research is a critical, careful, scholarly, scientific, positive, exhaustive investigation or an
organized and systematic inquiry of facts or answer to questions and solution to the problems.
The term ‘research design’ means drawing a tentative outline, a blue print and a scheme,
planning or arranging a strategy of conducting research with a through knowledge about
research methodology. It can enable certain guidelines and procedure to pursue authentic and
relevant investigation with a professional standard. It is a logical and systematic plan for
collecting data, measurement and analysis of data and prepared for a research study. The
research proposal is a written plan for a study and it reveals what the researcher intends to do. In
this paper the specific emphasis is given to the ‘research design’ keeping in mind the ‘empirical
studies’[1], important concepts in research design, classify the major types of designs and an
attempt is also made to present a format of a research project. Any scientific investigation must
begin with some structure or plan. This structure defines the number and the type of variables to
be studied and their relationship to one another. Such a structure is termed a design.
WHAT IS RESEARCH DESIGN
Kerlinger defines ‘a research design as the plan, structure and strategy of investigation
purporting to answer research questions and control variance’.[2] Research design provides the
‘glue’ that holds the research project together. A design is used to structure the research, to show
how all of the major parts of the research project - the samples or groups, measures, treatments
or programs, and methods of assignment- work together to try to address the central research
questions. We often describe a design using a concise notation that enables us to summarize a
complex design structure efficiently.[3]
Footnotes
[1] Research in social science is of two kinds: empirical studies and theoretical studies.
Empirical research is a systematic investigation aimed at finding new or substantiating facts (or
factors) that help further the understanding of a problem or problems and the rules or
interactions that govern them. While empirical studies examine the actual events of the human
situation, theoretical studies analyze or construct the concepts and images which define the
problems.
[2] Kerlinger, F.N, Foundations of behavioral research, Delhi: Surjeet Publications, 1978,
pp.300-301, cited in R.S. Dwivedi, Research Methods in Behavioral Sciences, New Delhi:
Macmillan India Limited, 1997, p.39.
[3] http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/constval.php.9/8/2007 9:27 PM.
[4] Jospal Singh, Methodology and techniques of social research, New Delhi: Kanishka
Publishers, distributors, 2001, p.183.
[5] Jospal Singh, Methodology and techniques of social research, p.183.
[6] John W. Creswell; Qualitative inquiry and Research design choosing among five
approaches (second Edition), New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2007, p41.
[7] John W. Creswell; p42.
[8] John W. Creswell; p42.
[9] Best (1984) Jacob Cherian, “Empirical Research Methods”, unpublished materials,
Thomas Mar Athanacious Institute of counseling and Research Center, Amalagiri, Kottayam,
2005. P.4.
[10] Best (1984) Jacob Cherian, “Empirical Research Methods”, unpublished materials, P.4
[11] Best (1984) Jacob Cherian, “Empirical Research Methods”, unpublished materials, P.4
[12] Extraneous Variables where a bivariate relationship is spurious. An extraneous
variables will operate where two variables (X and Y) co vary, not because they are causally related
but because they are both outcomes of a third (extraneous) variable.