Elements of Research Design

Chapter 6
 The Research Design
• Purpose of study (Exploratory, Descriptive and
Hypothesis Testing)
• Location (Contrived or Non Contrived)
• Type (Casual or correlation)
• Manipulated and control by researcher
(researcher interference)
• Temporal aspects (cross sectional or
longitudinal)
 Purpose of the study
1. Exploratory Study
• When not much is known about the situation
• No information is available
• Extensive preliminary work needed
• Some qualitative study needed (observation, interviews)
• When data reveal (expose) some pattern regarding interest,
theories developed and hypothesis developed.
• Henry Mintzberg interviewed nature of managerial
work tested in different settings from both
questionnaires and interviews.
• Important when some facts are known and more
information needed to develop viable theoretical
2. Descriptive Study
• In order to ascertain (establish) and be able to
describe the characteristics of the variable of
interest.
• Class room
• Characteristics of groups
3. Hypothesis Testing
• Explain the nature of certain relationship
• Establish the difference between groups.
 Types of Investigation
1. Casual Study
• Researcher wants to delineate(explain) the
cause of one or more problems are called
casual study.
2. Co relational Study
• When the researcher is delineating the
important variables associated with problem.
Researcher Interference with study
1. Minimal Interference
• Researcher no interference with normal activities.
• Having less interference only for data collection.
• Correlation study
2. Moderate Interference
• When researcher collect data from more than one point of time.
• Cause and effect study
• Manipulation and data collection
• Light and performance study
3. Excessive Interference
• Artificial Environment to control extraneous variable
• manupulation
 Study Setting
1. Contrived
• Artificial Setting
2. Non Contrived
• Natural Environment

Field Study: Correlation Study in natural environment

Field Experiment: Cause and Effect study in Natural
Environment
Lab Experiment: Cause and Effect study in Artificial
Environment
 Unit of Analysis
1. Individual as the unit of analysis
• Data will be collected from individual
2. Dyads as the unit of analysis
• Data should be collected from pairs
3. Groups as the unit of analysis
• Team performance
4. Divisions as the unit of analysis
• P&G Divisions
5. Industry as the unit of analysis
• Workforce employed or industry attractive
6. Country as the unit of analysis
 Time Horizon
• Cross Sectional
• researchers observe at one point in time.
• Cross-sectional research is usually the simplest and least costly
alternative.
• Longitudinal
• examine features of people or other units at more than one time.
• It is usually more complex and costly
• is also more powerful, especially when researchers seek answers
to questions about change.
 Time series research
 The panel study
 A cohort analysis