Ready to get started on your research design?
The first step is to define your research aims and choose the approach that best matches
them.
Let’s dive right in!
Hi, I'm Jessica from Scribbr, here to help you achieve your academic goals.
Before you can start designing your research, you should already have a clear idea of the
research problem you want to investigate.
Here is our example research problem: There has been a rapid rise in remote learning,
but teachers don’t know how to effectively adapt their lessons from in-person to online
classes.
There are many different aspects of this problem that you could investigate, so first you need
to figure out exactly what you aim to achieve.
Based on your aims, you’ll choose the approach that fits best: qualitative or quantitative.
Do you aim to make objective measurements and test hypotheses?
Then take a quantitative approach.
This type of research focuses on numbers and statistics.
You might use it to: Systematically describe characteristics, averages
and patterns.
Investigate relationships between variables.
Test the effectiveness of a treatment, program or product.
For example, if your aim is to test the effectiveness of a new online teaching method, a quantitative
approach is most suitable, because it allows you to measure quantifiable learning outcomes
like grades and test scores.
Do you want to gain an in-depth understanding of experiences, beliefs, cultures or ideas?
Then take a qualitative approach.
This type of research focuses on words and ideas.
You might use it to: Interpret and understand subjective experiences.
Give a rich account of a specific context.
Explore an under-researched problem and generate ideas for further research.
For example, if your aim is to explore exactly what students and teachers struggle with in
remote classes and to generate new ideas for online teaching strategies, a qualitative
approach would make the most sense.
Qualitative and quantitative approaches tend to look quite different in their research
process.
Quantitative research is often associated with the deductive method – you start with
a broad theory (based on existing research), come up with a specific hypothesis, and test
it using data.
To do this scientifically, you need to carefully plan your research design and use systematic
procedures to make sure your results are valid.
Qualitative research is often associated with the inductive method – you start with the
data, observe patterns in the data, and use your observations to develop theories or hypotheses.
That means the research design is often more flexible and open to change as new ideas emerge
from the data.
To avoid bias, you need to reflect carefully on your own assumptions and interpretations.
In reality, most research involves both deductive and inductive aspects.
But understanding these concepts can help you more clearly define your aims: do you
want to objectively test an existing theory, or do you want to explore and develop new
theories through your research?
You can also choose to create a mixed methods design, which incorporates aspects of both
approaches.
By combining qualitative and quantitative insights, you can gain a more complete picture
of the problem you're studying and strengthen the credibility of your conclusions.
There are several ways you might do this: Use qualitative research to develop hypotheses
that you will then test using quantitative data.
Use quantitative research to test hypotheses, and then collect qualitative data that helps
interpret and contextualize the results.
Use both types to answer different sub-questions that relate to your research problem.
Later in this playlist, I’ll walk you through some of the specific methods and procedures
you can use for each approach, so keep watching!
Now, try to define your own research aims, and decide which approach best matches them.
Once you’ve done that, come find me in the next video, where we’ll take a look at the
different types of design you can use for each of these approaches.