Elements of Research Design

CHAPTER 5

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The Research Design
In this step we need to design the
research
- Design the research : a way that
the requisite data can be gathered
and analyzed to arrive at a solution
for the problem that stimulate the
research project.

2
The research design
A blueprint for the collection ,
measurement and analysis of data ,
based on the research questions of
.the study

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Research Design

.John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2009

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Purpose of the Study

1. Exploration : Often where inquiry

begins
2. Description: Detail the features of

elements under review

3. Explanation (Hypothesis Testing)
Usually the aim of social scientists
Relating variables to account for process

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Purpose of the Study

Exploratory study:
is undertaken when not much is
known about the situation at hand, or
no information is available on how
similar problems or research issues
have been solved in the past.
Example:
A service provider wants to know why
his customers are switching to other
service providers?
.
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Purpose of the Study

Descriptive study:
is undertaken in order to ascertain and be able

to describe the characteristics of the variables

of interest in a situation.
Example:
A bank manager wants to have a profile of the

individuals who have loan payments

outstanding for 6 months and more. It would
include details of their average age, earnings,
nature of occupation, full-time/part-time
employment status, and the like. This might
help him to elicit further information or decide
right away on the types of individuals who 7
Purpose of the Study
Hypothesis testing:
Studies that engage in hypotheses
testing usually explain the nature of
certain relationships, or establish the
differences among groups or the
independence of two or more factors
in a situation.
Example:
A marketing manager wants to know
if the sales of the company will
increase if he doubles the advertising
dollars. 8
Type of Investigation

Causal
it is necessary to establish a definitive
cause-and-effect relationship.
Correlational
identification of the important factors
associated with the problem.

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 Causal
Direction of
Variable 1 Variable 2 Explanation
association

As education level
Education level Income level Positive increases, so does
income level.

As exercise
Exercise Weight Negative increases, weight
decreases

As study time
Study time Test score Positive increases, test score
increases

As number of sick
days increases,
Sick days Work productivity Negative
work productivity
decreases
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Examples
1- Does smoking cause cancer?
2- Are smoking and cancer related?
Or
Are smoking, drinking, and chewing
tobacco associated with cancer?

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Answers
causal- 1
correlational- 2

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: Example

1-Fears of an earthquake predicted

recently in an area were a causal of
a number of crashes of some houses
in the area in order to be eligible of
insurance policy.

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answer
Cause and effect relationship

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:Example
Increases in interest rates and
property taxes, the recession, and
the predicted earthquake
considerably slowed down the
business of real state agents in the
country.

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answer
Correlational

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Study Setting

Contrived: artificial setting

Non-contrived: the natural

environment where work proceeds
normally

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Study Setting: Contrived and
Noncontrived
Correlational studies done in noncontrived
settings are called field studies.
Studies conducted to establish cause-and-
effect relationship using the same natural
environment in which employees normally
function are called field experiments.
Experiments done to establish cause-and-
effect relationship in a contrived
environment and strictly controlled are called
lab experiments.
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Study setting : contrived
and noncontrived

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Example: Field Study
A bank manager wants to analyze the
relationship between interest rates and
bank deposit patterns of clients.
The researcher tries to correlate the
two by looking at deposits into different
kinds of accounts (such as savings,
certificates of deposit, and interest-
bearing checking accounts) as interest
rates changed.
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Example: Field Study
This is a field study where the bank
manager has taken the balances in
various types of accounts and
correlated them to the changes in
interest rates.
Research here is done in a
noncontrived setting with no
interference with the normal work
routine.
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Example: Field Experiment
The bank manager now wants to
determine the cause-and-effect
relationship between interest
rate and the inducements it offers
to clients to save and deposit
money in the bank. The researcher
selects four branches within 60/km
radius for the experiment.
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Example: Field Experiment
For 1 week only, he advertises the annual
rate for new certificates of deposit received
during that week. The interest rate would
be 9% in one branch, 8% in another,
and 10% in the third. In the fourth
branch, the interest rate remains
unchanged at 5%. Within the week, the
researcher would be able to determine the
effects, if any, of interest rates on deposit
mobilization.
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Example: Field Experiment
This example would be a field experiment
since nothing but the interest rate is
manipulated, with all activities occurring in
the normal and natural work environment.
Hopefully, all four branches chosen
would be compatible in size, number of
depositors, deposit patterns, and the like,
so that the interest-savings
relationships are influenced by some
third factor.

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Example: Lab Experiment
To be sure about the true relationship
between the interest rate and deposits, the
researcher could create an artificial
environment by choosing, for instance, 40
students who are all business majors in
their final year of study and in the same
age. The researcher splits the students into
four groups and give each one of them
$1000, which they are told they might buy
their needs or save for the future, or both.

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Example: Lab Experiment
The researcher offers them interest on what
they save as followings:
6% on savings for group 1.

8% for group 2.

9% for group 3.

1% for group 4 ( the old rate of interest).

Here, the researcher has created an artificial

laboratory environment and has
manipulated the interest rates for savings.
He also chosen subjects with similar
backgrounds.

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:Example
A bank manager wants to analyze the
relationship between interest rates and
bank deposit patterns of clients.
The researcher tries to correlate the
two by looking at deposits into different
kinds of accounts (such as savings,
certificates of deposit, and interest-
bearing checking accounts) as interest
rates changed.
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Example: Field Study
This is a field study where the bank
manager has taken the balances in
various types of accounts and
correlated them to the changes in
interest rates.
Research here is done in a
noncontrived setting with no
interference with the normal work
routine.
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: Example
The bank manager now wants to
determine the cause-and-effect
relationship between interest
rate and the inducements it offers
to clients to save and deposit
money in the bank. The researcher
selected four branches.

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Example: Field Experiment
This example would be a field
experiment all activities occurring in
the normal and natural work
environment.

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: Example
To be sure about the true relationship
between the interest rate and deposits,
the researcher choose 40 students who
are all business majors in their final
year of study and in the same age. The
researcher splits the students into four
groups and give each one of them
$1000, which they are told they might
buy their needs or save for the future,
or both.

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Example: Lab Experiment
Here, the researcher has created an artificial
laboratory environment.

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Population to be Studied

Unit of analysis:
Individuals
Dyads
Groups
Organizations
Cultures

.
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Unit of Analysis: Individual
If the researcher focuses on how
to raise the motivational levels of
employees, then we are
interested in individual
employees in the organization.
Here the unit of analysis is the
individual (the data will be
gathered from each individual).
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Unit of Analysis: Dyads
If the researcher is interested in
studying two-person interaction,
then several two-person groups
also known as dyads, will
become the unit of analysis
( analysis of husband-wife, and
supervisor-subordinate
relationships at the work place.
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Unit of Analysis
Groups as a unit of analysis
Organizations as a unit of

analysis
Cultures as a unit of

analysis

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:Example
The Chief Financial Officer of a
manufacturing company wants to know
how many of the staff would be
interested in attending a 3-day seminar
on making appropriate investment
decisions.

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answer
Data will have to be collected
from each individual staff
member and the unit of analysis
is individual.

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:Example
A human resources manager wants
to first identify the number of
employees in three departments of
the organization who are in
mentoring relationships, and then
find out what the jointly perceived
benefits of such a relationship are.

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Answer

Once the mentor and the mentored pairs

are identified, their joint perceptions can be
obtained by treating each pair as one unit.
If the manager wants data from a sample of
10 pairs, he will have to deal with 20
individuals, a pair at a time. The
information obtained from each pair will be
a data point for subsequent analysis.
Thus, the unit of analysis is the dyad.

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:Example
A manager wants to see the patterns of
usage of the newly installed
Information System (IS) by the
production, sales, and operations
personnel.

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answer
Here three groups of personnel are
involved and information on the
number of times the IS is used by
each member in each of the three
groups as well as other relevant
issues will be collected and
analyzed.
Here the unit of analysis is the
group.
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 Organization another important
unit of analysis. When organization
is the UA, the focus is on
organizations features not on
Individuals within the organization
Example: company, college,
mental hospitals compare the
size of organization
:Example
Johnson & Johnson company wants to
see which of its various divisions (soap,
shampoo, body oil, etc.) have made
profits of over 12% during the current
year.

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answer
Here, the profits of each of the
divisions will be examined and the
information aggregated across
the various geographical units of
the division.
The unit of analysis will be the
division, at which level the
data will be aggregated.

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:Example
The health care industry, for instance,
includes hospitals, nursing homes, small
and large clinics, and other health care
providing facilities.

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answer
The data from these subunits will
have to be aggregated to see how
many employees are employed by
the heath care industry.
This will need to be done for each of
the other industries.

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:Example
The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of
a multinational corporation wants to
know the profits made during the past
5 years by each of the subsidiaries in
England, Germany, and France. It is
possible that there are many regional
offices of these subsidiaries in each of
these countries.

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answer
The profits of the various regional
centers for each country have to
be aggregated and the profits for
each country for the past 5 years
provided to the CFO.
The data will now have to be
aggregated at the country
level.
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Four major Units of
Analysis
Example. Older people are more. 1

afraid of crime than younger

. people

Variables: Age and fear of crime

Individual

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 :Example
Compare single vs. double parents
family in terms of poverty rate,
delinquency
Gangs: compare Asian gangs vs. Latino
gangs in terms of criminal activity and
group cohesion

Group
Exercise
A supervisor thinks that the low
efficiency of the machine tool
operators is directly linked to the
high level of fumes emitted in the
workshop. He would like to prove
this to his supervisor through a
research study.

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Exercise

1.Would this be a causal or a correlational

study? Why?
2- what kind of study setting would this
be : contrived , noncontrived ?
3. What kind of study would this be: field
study, lab experiment, or field
experiment? Why?

4. What would be the unit of analysis?

Why?
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Answers to the Exercise
1. This would be a causal study because the
operator wants to prove to the supervisor that
the fumes are causing operators to be low in
their efficiency. In other words, the machine
tool operator is trying to establish the fact
that fumes cause low efficiency in workers.
2. noncontrived

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Answers to the Exercise
3. This would be a field experiment. Though the
study would be set up in the natural environment
of the workers where the work is normally done,
the amount of fumes will have to be manipulated
while other factors such as atmospheric pressure
may have to be controlled. Because of the
location of the study, it will be a field experiment.
4. The unit of analysis would be the individual
operators. The data will be collected with respect
to each operator and then the conclusions will be
made as to whether the operators are less
efficient because of the fumes emitted in the
workshop.

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A researcher wants to know why individuals in Community

A have a higher rate of a rare form of cancer when

compared to those living in Community B. To find out the
reasons for the differences in cancer rates in these two
communities, the investigator surveyed residents about
their lifestyle, noted the types of businesses that were
present in the community and searched medical records.
The researcher found that the headquarters for the Toxico
Chemical Plant is located in Community A, there is a higher
rate of cigarette smoking in this community and residents
tended to delay or skip going to the doctor for an annual
checkup. In Community B, the largest employer was a
department store and on average, residents did not smoke
as much as residents from Community A. However, like
individuals from Community A, Community B residents
tended to delay or skip their annual checkup with their
.doctor

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 It is a descriptive study

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 An investigator wants to evaluate whether a new technique to
teach math to elementary school students is more effective
than the standard teaching method. Using an experimental
design, the investigator divides the class randomly (by
chance) into two groups and calls them group A and group
B. The students cannot choose their own group. The random
assignment process results in two groups that should share
equal characteristics at the beginning of the experiment. In
group A, the teacher uses a new teaching method to teach
the math lesson. In group B, the teacher uses a standard
teaching method to teach the math lesson. The investigator
compares test scores at the end of the semester to evaluate
the success of the new teaching method compared to the
standard teaching method. At the end of the study, the
results indicated that the students in the new teaching
method group scored significantly higher on their final exam
than the students in the standard teaching group.

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 Experimental studies

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 A fitness instructor wants to test the effectiveness of a
performance-enhancing herbal supplement on
students in her exercise class. To create experimental
groups that are similar at the beginning of the study,
the students are assigned into two groups at random
(they can not choose which group they are in).
Students in both groups are given a pill to take every
day, but they do not know whether the pill is a
placebo (sugar pill) or the herbal supplement. The
instructor gives Group A the herbal supplement and
Group B receives the placebo (sugar pill). The
students' fitness level is compared before and after six
weeks of consuming the supplement or the sugar pill.
No differences in performance ability were found
between the two groups suggesting that the herbal
supplement was not effective.
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 Experimental studies

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 Many children who live in the Bronx , a
borough of New York City, are developing
asthma. In a descriptive study investigating
this problem, parents whose children have
asthma are asked about whether they
smoke around their child, whether they live
near a freeway, whether their child regularly
sees a healthcare provider, their family
income level and also if there is a history in
their family of asthma. Prior research has
shown that these factors may have an
influence on the development of asthma in
children.
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 It is a descriptive study

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