I'm not sure I properly understand your question, but I suspect that it might be useful to start by describing  how you intend to use this "list of research designs", or "classification" of research designs. If you are simply classifying research artifacts like publications there could be multiple dimensions of classifications. One  dimension might be to characterize papers as being either descriptive or prescriptive, by looking at the types of recommendations made in the papers. 

Thank you very much for your answer!

I intend to use the list in teaching activities. I want to show my students what kind of researches could they performe.

It will also be necessary in defining and describing my researches in articles. Should I mention it is descriptive, fundamental, phenomenological, narrative, qualitative etc. or that it is explanatory, quantitative, content analysis, aplicative etc.

Research classification is based on several parameters. These can be the methodology that drives the study, the knowledge it creates, the user group, the research problem it investigates and the theory that drives them. However, traditionally, there were two main approaches; Qualitative and Quantitative. Now, there is the new birth of the mixed methods approach. Therefore, I conclude that we have THREE main research approaches. Then, the research methods are varied and some fits in one or more of the approaches depending on the purpose of the study.

Best Regards

Dickson Adom

Social Science Research consists of all research conducted in the humanities and social sciences (e.g., Economics, Sociology, Anthropology, Legal Empirial Research, Social Policy etc.). We often find all of these social sciences within the same faculty at universities.

Social Science Research Methods can be Qualitative/Quantitative/Quantitative-Qualitative and I think these categories are what you are looking for because they consist of all the methodologies that all the social sciences use in their research.

I have attached two links for you to download a reading list booklet for Social Science Research and Social Science Research Methods, and a link to my booklet on Quantitative-Qualitative Research in Legal Empirical Research as an illustrative example.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3008573

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2407141

Social science research is the study of society and the manner in which people behave and influence the world around us. This type of research tells us about the world beyond our immediate experience and can help explain how our own society works - from the causes of unemployment or what helps economic growth, to how and why people vote, or what makes people happy. It provides vital information for governments and policymakers, local authorities, non-governmental organisations and others.

There are many different classifications that could be relevant to your audience, and field. see e.g. Smith & Mukherjee "Classifying research questions addressed in published evaluation studies"  Education Evaluation & policy (1994) for an example with 29 categories to evaluate research questions in their field.  A google scholar search on "classifications of research methods" may turn up something useful in your field.

There are a few general classifications across many fields that may be useful to start with e.g.:

• The audience ( who is intended to read the article )
• The action requested of them by the article ( agree, do something etc.)
• citation analysis of  related articles
• The types of  recommendation to be made
• the types of analysis to be undertaken
• the types of data available

Thank you all very much for your answers!

I think saying that there are qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method researches is never enough. When I wrote in an article that my research is qualitative, a reviewer replied: what kind of qualitative research? In another article I wrote my research is a grounded theory study. The reviewer comment was: which variant of grounded theory?

Yes. The reviewer was right to ask. Aside from the broader research approaches (as I have indicated in my earlier submission), you must narrow it down to the specifics. When you say that your study is qualitative, you must further point out the research method(s) in the qualitative approach you have used and even within the research method in the qualitative approach, you have to specify which of them you have utilized.For instance, if you just mentioned that you used qualitative research approach, which of the research methods under it did you use: Ethnography, Phenomenology, Case Study etc. Even within these, there are other sub-types which you must indicate the one you employed.

If your methodological approach is very clear and specific, it makes your findings easy to be replicated by another researcher. Also, it increases the valid ility and reliability of your data generated and the conclusions that you finally draw would be cogent and robust. Best regards

Dickson Adom

I understood what you deal is not about what is qualitative and quantitative methods and their variants, you are a teacher and you want to communicate to your students why exist so many methods approaches, well, first of all don´t try to define each method, try your student find meaningfull questions about subjects each like to research, then ask how intuitively they would answer that question, before you put definitions and concepts in their minds lead them to see the variety of paths in methods research... 

Indeed my question was not properly formulated and/or understood.

Thank you very much for your suggestion. Is just that at the beginning of my course I try to indicate to my students some types of researches they could performe to see researches' diversity and beauty. Like you could research many people in surveys or few people in case studies or your researches could focus on narratives or on images etc.