According to Sekaran (2003) a research design is set up to decide on, among other issues, how to collect further data, analyze and interpret them, and finally, to provide an answer to the problem.

Sekaran (2003) has identified six elements of research design. They are listed below.

1. Purpose of the study

2. Type of investigation

3. Extent of researcher interference

4. Study setting

5. Unit of analysis

6. The time horizon

Sekaran (2003) wrote:

“The researcher would determine the appropriate decisions to be made in the study design based on the problem definition, the research objectives, the extent of rigor desired, and cost considerations. Sometimes, because of the time and costs involved, a researcher might be constrained to settle for less than the ideal research design. For instance, the researcher might have to conduct a cross-sectional instead of a longitudinal study, do a field study rather than an experimental design, choose a smaller rather than a larger sample size, and so on, thus sub-optimizing the research design decisions and settling for a lower level of scientific rigor because of resource constraints."

For more details please read Sekaran's book.

Reference

Sekaran, U., 2003. Research methods for business: A skill building approach. John Wiley & Sons.

A research design may be described as a series of decisions that as a whole form a strategy for answering the research questions and testing the hypotheses. Supporting this way of thinking, Cavana et al. (2001) view research design as a structured set of rational decision-making choices, or guidelines, to assist in generating valid and reliable research results. A research design in a positivist setting covers decisions about the choice of data collection methods, and about measurement and scaling procedures, instruments, samples and data analysis (Cavana et al, 2001). A good research design must make sure that the information obtained is relevant to the research problem, and that it was collected by objective procedures.

The most commonly classified research designs of exploratory, descriptive or causal research .

Regards,

Cavana, R. Y., Delahaye, B. L., and Sekaran, U. (2001), Applied Business Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: John Wiley & Sons Australia.

A research design is the strategies one chooses to uncover solutions to a research problem.

Dear Dr. Mohamed Ismail Mohideen Bawa,

In scholarly tradition, it has been maintained that the major role of research design is to consolidate the different parts of the inquiry in a logical and coherent fashion to tackle the research problem. It constitutes the plan for the measurement, analysis, and collection of data. Clearly, research problem determines the type of design, implying that also in this sense, an inquiry is problem-centric.

Hello,

There is a popular adage that goes like this: Fail to plan ; plan to fail. As such, the research design is a prerequisite which the researcher should think of before actually launching it. Consequently, being a crucial step in the research process, the research design acts as a map of action- a blueprint for data collection , measurement , and analysis. A research design can also be considered a conceptual structure within which research is going to be conducted and deals with such decisions as what, where, when, how , how much, etc. concerning the implementation of a specific enquiry.

Best regards,

R. Biria

Research design serves a foundation on which the overall study is built or developed. Research design gives directions as how an investigation could be started and ended.

They are different

“A research design is the arrangement of conditions for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine relevance to the research purpose with economy in procedure.”1

The research design describes a set of guidelines that connect theoretical paradigm to strategies of inquiry and methods for collecting empirical material (Churchill, 1979). Yin (1999) described research design as the logic that connects the data to be collected and the conclusions to be drawn to the initial questions of the study.