Research Design

Research design is about getting valid answers to research questions in a reliable and efficient way. It is about maximising the validity and scope of application (generalisability) of scientific inferences, given the goals of the researcher and the practical and ethical constraints. From one perspective, research design can be considered applied epistemology as it deals with the big question ‘How do we know?’ at a more operational level than philosophy. From another perspective, it is a branch of the decision sciences as it is about making optimal choices under constraints. Research design choices are made at three levels of generality (see Figure 13.1). At the first, most general, level research design is about the adoption of certain general ontological and epistemological positions and a broad theoretical outlook. For example, it is about whether one approaches the problem of political inequity from an interpretivist or positivist, Marxist or feminist vantage point. The ontological, epistemological and theoretical vantage points also direct the researcher’s attention towards some research questions at the expense of others. Consider that gender-based political inequality is a much more central problem for feminist theory than it is for classic Marxism, for instance.