Research Design: Definition, Guide and Methods

Empirical research typically does not proceed arbitrarily, but follows a defined scientific investigation plan. Once you have found a topic for your student work and formulated your hypotheses, the next step in your research process is to create a detailed concept for how you will proceed further.

In science, such concrete conceptualization of your study is called "research design". Research design is the cornerstone of your entire investigation and will help you implement your research project. In this article, we show you how to do this most effectively.

Our Definition: Why is a Research Design Important?

 

“Research design refers to the external form of an empirical study. Sometimes it is also called an investigation plan, research arrangement, research type, research strategy, or research conception. It is the overarching methodological plan according to which the study is structured.” (Hug/Poscheschnik 2010: 70)

 

Research design is an indispensable tool for moving from a research idea to a feasible investigation model for your academic work. This includes both the temporal planning of your investigation and the establishment of concrete research units (e.g., choice of research method, sampling, determination of study participants).

At first, this term sounds more complicated than it actually is. Especially for student work, research design can simply consist of finding a research method that fits your research question and thinking through in detail how to implement it most sensibly – both temporally and content-wise!

Additionally, in science there is no single unified or "correct" model for creating a research design, so you must make independent decisions when conducting your individual study. As long as you justify your research design, you cannot really go wrong with this part of your work.

 

Our Step-by-Step Guide: Conceptualize Your Study's Research Design!

In general, any research can follow a design that is individual to it. A research design is always both discipline-specific and shaped by the specific objectives of the study. Nevertheless, you can determine the appropriate research design for your investigation by following a few simple steps:

 

Step 1 – Location of Research: Laboratory or Field Research

Basic questions: Where should your investigation take place? Should your participants or research objects come to you? Or would you like to seek out the participants in their natural environment?

• Laboratory research: If you plan a study where you cannot or do not want to account for disruptive environmental influences on the people being studied, a laboratory study would be a good choice. Only there can you create a controlled environment that does not exist in ordinary everyday reality.
  
  Application example: An experiment on the effectiveness of a new therapy for treating mental illness
   
• Field research: If you want to study test subjects in their natural everyday life. Perhaps you want to investigate primarily how certain people act in specific situations and what they think while doing so.
  
  Application example: Various observations of, for example, school classes during instruction, but also opinion surveys in downtown areas

 

 

Step 2 – Objective of the Study: Descriptive Research or Practice Research

Basic questions: Do you want to describe and analyze your research subject as precisely as possible without aiming for change? Or do you want your research to change something and contribute to solving a concrete problem?

• Descriptive research: If you plan a descriptive study where you want to present the research subject as objectively and comprehensively as possible.
  
  Application example: Behavioral or market research with an online survey
   
• Practice, action, or research-based learning: If the goal of your research is not solely for knowledge gain but also aims at the subsequent solution of a concrete practical problem.
  
  Application example: Interviews with homeless individuals in social work to improve their situation

 

These two fundamental research categories are often supplemented in specialized literature by additional types of investigations. These include, among others, explanatory (= to test a hypothesis that has been formulated), exploratory (= to gain initial insights into a little-researched area), and causal (= to establish relationships between causes and effects) research. For your research design, it would still be important first to consider whether you want to work fundamentally in a descriptive or descriptive manner, or in an application- or practice-oriented manner. In the course of your investigation, you can possibly make a further specification of the type of research.

 

 

Step 3 – Choice of Research Method: Qualitative or Quantitative

Basic question: What must a study look like for your research question to be answered? How do you concretely want to gather the required research data?

Within the research design, choosing the research method is the most important decision for your investigation. While the research design fundamentally determines the formal structure of your empirical study (= how your investigation is structured), the research method primarily influences the content aspects (= with what means should concrete research be conducted).

Any empirical research can fundamentally be divided into qualitative and quantitative methods, each with its own methods. These not only have fundamentally different objectives, but differ with regard to the entire implementation and conception of your research project.

• Qualitative methods: qualitative interviews (guided interviews, expert interviews, diary surveys), qualitative observation, qualitative content and document analysis, case studies, focus group discussions. If you want to place the personal perception of a few test subjects and their subjective and detailed justifications at the center of the investigation.
  
  Application example: Guided interviews with ten of Germany's most famous TikTok influencers about their reasons for using this social media platform
   
• Quantitative methods: standardized surveys (online surveys, standardized written or oral interviews), standardized observation, standardized content analysis, experiments, physiological measurements. If you want to capture specific causal relationships in a standardized and systematic way with as much data as possible using a large number of participants.
  
  Application example: Standardized and as representative as possible election survey before the next federal election

 

In our article on quantitative and qualitative research methods, we discuss in detail how to find the best method for your research question.

 

 

Step 4 – Determine Examined Units or Sample Size: Single Case Analysis, Survey (= Partial Survey) or Complete Survey

Basic questions: How many people do you want to study? Is this number realistic? How will you find these people? Are you aiming for a representative study?

• Single case analysis: If you want to intensively work with only a single case or with a few cases that can be combined (e.g., a social group or an institution) in order to research it in its complexity.
  
  Application example: Patient analyses (e.g., following Freud) in human and social sciences
   
• Survey (= also called "partial survey" or "study population"): If you want to make representative statements about a population (= the entire group being studied) of people without having to interview all of these people. In this case, you must make a scientifically sound selection of the people being studied and form the so-called sample. Whether you study very few or many people depends on your research method and the objective of your study.
  
  Application example: Quantitative surveys in opinion research of a selected group of people
   
• Complete survey: If you want to study all people in your population, for example, the entire population of a state or all residents of Hamburg. However, such complete surveys are very rarely conducted because they are very time and cost intensive.
  
  Application example: Census surveys

 

In our article on sample formation, we also discuss how you can determine the appropriate sample for your research.

 

 

Step 5 – Determine Evaluation Method

Basic question: How should the collected data be evaluated? What expertise is necessary for this?

• The choice of evaluation method is directly linked to your research method. Both qualitative and quantitative methods now have a whole range of models that can be used to evaluate the data collected.
  
  Quantitative research: Frequency analyses, significance tests, correlation analyses, and other statistical procedures
  Qualitative research: Content analysis, discourse analysis, Grounded Theory, etc.

 

Our Literature Recommendation: Hug, Theo/Gerald Poscheschnik, in collaboration with Bernd Lederer and Anton Perzy (2010). Empirisch Forschen. Über die Planung und Umsetzung von Projekten im Studium. Konstanz: UVK.
➔ especially Chapter 4: “Design matters – Über Sinn und Zweck des Forschungsdesigns”, p. 70-80.

 

Research Design in Writing Up Your Work

“Design is merely the bare skeleton of the study, which must only be filled with the flesh of concrete methods.” (Hug/Poscheschnik 2010: 72)

 

Of course, the areas of a possible research design presented by us should also be combined in practice or adapted to the specific discipline. It is certainly not a problem if your research cannot be assigned to each of these categories. What matters is that in the end a concept emerges that you can manage in the given time with the available resources. Certainly, it would be exciting in theory to conduct an ambitious complete survey or a complex laboratory experiment. However, if you lack both time and equipment or professional know-how, such a research design would ultimately not be a good decision.

When writing up your study, the research design extends throughout your entire work. Typically, however, you will especially in the main part of the work describe in detail how you have conceptualized your investigation – and why:

1. Introduction: Research question
2. Theory: State of research
3. Research Design: Detailed concept of the work
3.1 Formation of hypotheses
3.2 Choice of research method, e.g. quantitative survey
3.3 Determine sample
3.4 Definition and determination of the variables and characteristics examined
3.5 Question catalog
4. Data collection: Standardized online survey
5. Data evaluation
6. Results and findings
7. Reflection on your own approach
8. Conclusion

 

Note: Most of the time, hypothesis formation is counted as part of the research design in the write-up. In the guided research process, it is more likely that you first determined your research question together with hypotheses and only then chose the appropriate design. Due to readability and so that your work is logically structured, the hypotheses should nevertheless either be written down in the first subsection of the research design or in an additional chapter directly before it.

 

 

Further Reading:

Hug, Theo/Gerald Poscheschnik, in collaboration with Bernd Lederer and Anton Perzy (2010). Empirisch Forschen. Über die Planung und Umsetzung von Projekten im Studium. Konstanz: UVK.

Hunziker, Alexander W. (2013). Spass am wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten. So schreiben Sie eine gute Semester-, Bachelor- und Masterarbeit. 5. Auflage. Zürich: SKV.

Raithel, Jürgen (2008). Quantitative Forschung. Ein Praxiskurs. 2. Auflage. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften: Wiesbaden.