QUAID-E-AZAM UNIVERSITY

ISLAMABAD

Assignment # 2: Summary of Research Design

Program: MSs (Semester-2nd)

Course: Research Methodology

Submitted To: Dr. Tasawar Hussain

Submitted By: Umar Baig Quershi

A research design is the arrangements of conditions for the collection and analyzing of data.
It is the conceptual structure within which research is collected. It is basically the set of
procedures used in conducting and analyzing measures of the variables describe in the
research problem. It is blueprint for the collection and measurements of the data.
Research design classified into 3 ways:
1. Exploratory research studies
2. Descriptive research studies
3. Causal or experimental research studies
A research design helps to decide upon some issues such as, when, how, what etc. which
considers to an investigation or aa research study. It is planned and we already decided it that
how can we collect, analyses and design or collected data. Research design gives a figure or
shape that how can we treat or design the data. It is the outline of what the researchers is
going to do with its hypothesis it made, and final data analysis. A research gives decisions
which includes:
i. Nature of study
ii. Purpose of study
iii. Nature of data
iv. From where the data is collected
v. The methods of data collection can be used
vi. What time-period the study would cover.
vii. The location where the study would be conducted.
viii. The methods of data analysis that would be adopted
ix. The way the report would be prepared.
x. The way the report would be prepared.
Now, we will discuss about types of research.

1. Exploratory research studies

"Exploratory research is the preliminary research to clarify the exact nature of the problem to
be solved".
The main purpose of such studies is that of formulating the problem for more precise
investigation or of developing the working hypothesis from an operational point of view. The
major stress in such studies on the discovery of ideas and insights. As such the research
design appropriate for such studies must be flexible enough to provide opportunities for
considering different aspects of the problem under studies. To carry out exploratory research
generally, there is no prior research done and the existing ones do not answer the problem

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accurately. It enables a researcher to answer the questions like What is the research? What is
the purpose of research? etc. For example, consider a scenario where a juice shop owner feels
that increasing the variety of juices will enable increase in customers, however he is not sure
and needs more information. The owner intends to carry out an exploratory research to find
out if expanding their juices selection will enable him to get more customers.

2. Descriptive research studies:

"Descriptive research studies are those which are concerned with describing the
characteristics of a particular individual of a group". In other words, descriptive research
primary focuses on describing the nature of demographic segment, without focusing on 'why'
a certain phenomenon occurs.
It does not answer questions about how/when/why the characteristics occurred. Rather it
addresses the "what" question (what are the characteristics of the population or situation
being studied?).The characteristics used to describe the situation or population are usually
some kind of categorical scheme also known as descriptive categories. For example, the
periodic table have arranged elements. Scientists use knowledge about the nature of electrons,
protons, and neutrons to devise this categorical scheme. We now take for granted the periodic
table, yet it took descriptive research to devise it. The description is used for averages and
other statistical calculations. Qualitative research often has the aim of description and
researchers may follow-up with examinations of why the observations exist and what the
implications of the findings are. Some other problems or research questions that leads to
descriptive research are:
 Market researchers that want to observe habits of consumers.
 A company that wants to evaluate the morale of its staff.
 An organization to understand if its wellness programs increase the overall health of
employees.

3. Causal or Experimental research studies:

"Experimental research design is used to establish a relationship between a cause and effect
of a situation". It is the causal research design where the effect caused by independent on the
dependent variable is observed. It is important for experimental research to establish cause
and effect of a phenomenon, which means it should be definite that effects observed from an
experiment are due to the cause. For example, a researcher wanted to examine the effects
these different kinds of cough medications on children ages 2-16. Consider another example,
causal research might be used in a business environment to quantify the effect that a change
to its present operations will have on its future production levels to assist in the business
planning process. In view of the stated research design decisions, the overall research design
decisions may be divided into the following:

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  The sampling design that deals with the method of selecting items to be observed for
the selected study.
 The observational design that relates to the conditions under which the observations
are to be made.
 The statistical design that concern with the questions of how many items are to be
observed, and how the information and data gathered are to be analyzed.
 The operational design that deals with the techniques by which the procedures
specified in the sampling, statistics and observational designs can be carried out.
The features of good research design are often characterized by adjectives like flexible,
appropriate, efficient, economical, and so on. Generally, the design which minimizes bias and
maximizes the reliability of the data collected and analyzed is considered a good design.