Unit 2: Research Design
Unit 2: Research Design
Unit 2: Research Design
Research Design
Unit-II:
• Research design: Concept, Features of a good research design,
• Use of a good research design Qualitative and Quantitative research approaches,
• Comparison – Pros and Cons of both approaches.
• Research Designs: Concept, types and uses.
• Concept of Cross-sectional and Longitudinal Research.
• Experimental Design: Concept of Cause, Causal relationships, Concept of
Independent & Dependent variables, extraneous variable, Treatment, Control
group.
Research design: Concept
• The formidable problem that follows the task of defining the research problem is the
preparation of the design of the research project, popularly known as the “research design”.
Decisions regarding what, where, when, how much, by what means concerning an inquiry or
a research study constitute a research design.
• In fact, the research design is the conceptual structure within which research is conducted; it
Research Design: Definition
• A research design is a framework or blueprint for conducting the research
project. It details the procedures necessary for obtaining the information
needed to structure or solve marketing research problems.
• More explicitly, the design decisions happen to be in respect of:
so on.
• Generally, the design which minimises bias and maximises the reliability of the data collected and
• The design which gives the smallest experimental error is supposed to be the best design in many
investigations.
• A design may be quite suitable in one case, but may be found wanting in one respect or the other in the
• One single design cannot serve the purpose of all types of research problems.
• A research design appropriate for a particular research problem,
usually involves the consideration of the following factors:
(i) the means of obtaining information;
(ii) the availability and skills of the researcher and his staff, if any;
(iii) the objective of the problem to be studied;
(iv) the nature of the problem to be studied; and
(v) the availability of time and money for the research work.
Research Designs: Concept, types and uses. Concept of Cross-sectional and
Longitudinal Research. Experimental Design
Think about it
• What should be research design of OLA EV scooter launch in
India?
Research Design
Exploratory Conclusive
Research Design Research Design
Descriptive Causal
Research Research
Cross-Sectional Longitudinal
Design Design
Table 3.2
Exploratory Descriptive Causal
Objective: Discovery of ideas Describe market Determine cause
and insights characteristics or and effect
functions relationships
• Survey of experts
• Pilot surveys
• Secondary data analyzed in a qualitative way
• Qualitative research
Use of Descriptive Research
• In single cross-sectional designs, there is only one sample of respondents and information
is obtained from this sample only once.
• In multiple cross-sectional designs, there are two or more samples of respondents, and
information from each sample is obtained only once. Often, information from different
samples is obtained at different times.
Table 3.3
Percentage consuming on a typical day
Age 1950 1960 1969 1979
8-19 52.9 62.6 73.2 81.0
20-29 45.2 60.7 76.0 75.8 C8
30-39 33.9 46.6 67.7 71.4 C7
40-49 23.2 40.8 58.6 67.8 C6
50+ 18.1 28.8 50.0 51.9 C5
C1 C2 C3 C4
C1: cohort born prior to 1900 C5: cohort born 1931-40
C2: cohort born 1901-10 C6: cohort born 1940-49
C3: cohort born 1911-20 C7: cohort born 1950-59
C4: cohort born 1921-30 C8: cohort born 1960-69
Longitudinal Designs
Same
Sample Sample also
Longitudinal Surveyed at
Design Surveyed at
T1 T2
Time T1 T2
Relative Advantages and Disadvantages of Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Designs
Detecting Change - +
Large amount of data collection - +
Accuracy - +
Representative Sampling + -
Response bias + -
• To determine the nature of the relationship between the causal variables and
the effect to be predicted
• METHOD: Experiments
Research Designs for various type of research
• Extraneous variable
• Control
• Confounded relationship
• Research hypothesis
Women entrepreneurs
• Experimental and non-experimental hypothesis-testing research
• Treatments
• Experiment
Independent and Dependent Variable
• An independent variable is the cause, and a dependent variable is
the effect. Why are they called that? Dependent variables depend on
independent variables. If all of that gets confusing, just remember this
graphical relationship:
Dependent and independent variables:
• A concept which can take on different quantitative values is called a variable. As such the concepts like weight,
height, income are all examples of variables.
• Qualitative phenomena (or the attributes) are also quantified on the basis of the presence or absence of the
concerning attribute(s). Phenomena which can take on quantitatively different values even in decimal points are
called ‘continuous variables’.* But all variables are not continuous.
• If they can only be expressed in integer values, they are non-continuous variables or in statistical
language ‘discrete variables’.
• Age is an example of continuous variable, but the number of children is an example of non-continuous variable.
• If one variable depends upon or is a consequence of the other variable, it is termed as a dependent variable, and
the variable that is antecedent to the dependent variable is termed as an independent variable. For instance, if we
say that height depends upon age, then height is a dependent variable and age is an independent variable.
Further, if in addition to being dependent upon age, height also depends upon the individual’s sex, then height is
a dependent variable and age and sex are independent variables. Similarly, readymade films and lectures are
examples of independent variables, whereas behavioural changes, occurring as a result of the environmental
manipulations, are examples of dependent variables.
• A hypothesis is a statement describing a researcher’s expectation
regarding what she anticipates finding. Hypotheses in quantitative
research are a nomothetic causal relationship that the researcher
expects to demonstrate.
Human
Wellbeing
Concept of Cause, Causal relationships
• Most social scientific studies attempt to provide some kind of causal
explanation. A study on an intervention to prevent child abuse is
trying to draw a connection between the intervention and changes in
child abuse.
• Causality refers to the idea that one event, behavior, or belief will
result in the occurrence of another, subsequent event, behavior, or
belief. In other words, it is about cause and effect. It seems simple,
but you may be surprised to learn there is more than one way to
explain how one thing causes another.
• Correlation examples
• For example, if they are fully correlated this will imply that the value of first will increase (or
decrease) in the same amount (percentage) as the value of second.
• Correlation doesn’t only work for site content and SEO but can also be used for statistics,
acquiring scientific evidence, risk control, improving technology, health industry and when
performing various studies.
• Causality
• The relation between something that happens and the thing that causes it . The first thing
that happens is the cause and the second thing is the effect .
• It is very important to know that correlation does not mean causality. While correlation is a
mutual connection between two or more things, causality is the action of causing
something.
• Causality examples
• For example, there is a correlation between ice cream sales and the temperature, as you can
see in the chart below .
Extraneous variable:
Control
effect of extraneous variable(s). The technical term ‘control’ is used when we design the
• Usually a research hypothesis must contain, at least, one independent and one
dependent variable.
• At the end of the course, he administers a test to each group in order to judge the
effectiveness of the training programme on the student’s performance-level. This
is an example of experimental hypothesis-testing research because in this case the
independent variable, viz., the type of training programme, is manipulated.
• Experimental and control groups: In an experimental hypothesis-
testing research when a group is exposed to usual conditions, it is termed
a ‘control group’, but when the group is exposed to some novel or special
condition, it is termed an ‘experimental group’. In the above illustration,
the Group A can be called a control group and the Group B an
experimental group.
• The two treatments are the usual studies programme and the special
studies programme. Similarly, if we want to determine through an
experiment the comparative impact of three varieties of fertilizers on
the yield of wheat, in that case the three varieties of fertilizers will be
treated as three treatments.
• Experiment: The process of examining the truth of a statistical hypothesis,
relating to some research problem, is known as an experiment. For example, we
can conduct an experiment to examine the usefulness of a certain newly
developed drug.
• External Validity
• Do the results apply to the broader population?
• Internal Validity
• Is the independent variable responsible for the
observed changes in the dependent variable?
Confounding Variables That Threaten Internal Validity
• Maturation
• Changes due to normal growth or predictable
changes
• History
• Changes due to an event that occurs during the
study, which might have affects the results
Confounding Variables That Threaten Internal Validity
• Instrumentation
• Any change in the calibration of the measuring instrument over
the course of the study
• Selection
• Any factor that creates groups that are not equal at the start of the
study
Confounding Variables That Threaten Internal Validity
• Attrition
• Loss of participants during a study; are the
participants who drop out different from those who
continue?
• Diffusion of treatment
• Changes in participants” behavior in one condition
because of information they obtained about the
procedures in other conditions
Subject Effects
• Compensatory effects
Experimental Designs
• Principles of experimental designs:
• Replication
• Randomization
• Local control
Types of Experimental designs
• Important experiment designs are as follows:
• (a) Informal experimental designs:
• Before-and-after without control design.
• After-only with control design.
• Before-and-after with control design.
• (b) Formal experimental designs:
• Completely randomized design (C.R. Design).
• Randomized block design (R.B. Design).
• Latin square design (L.S. Design).
• Factorial designs.
Informal experimental designs:
• Before-and-after without control design:
Assumptions:
Behaviour towards the phenomenon considered. If this assumption is not true, there
is the possibility of extraneous variation entering into the treatment effect. However,
data can be collected in such a design without the introduction of problems with the
passage of time.
Informal experimental designs:
• Before-and-after with control design:
It avoids extraneous variation resulting both from the passage of time and from non-
comparability of the test and control areas.
Formal experimental designs:
• Completely randomized design (C.R. design):
• Involves only two principles viz., the principle Replication and the principle of
randomization of experimental designs
• One-way anova is used to analyse CR design.
Limitation: The individual differences among those conducting the treatments are not eliminated
Completely randomized design (C.R. design):
Limitation:
This design is that it requires number of rows, columns and treatments
to be equal.
Factorial designs:
• The effects of varying more than one factor are to be determined.
• They are specially important in several economic and social
phenomena where usually a large number of factors affect a particular
problem.
• Simple factorial design may either be a 2 × 2 simple factorial design, or it may be,