Explain the steps in Preparing a business research design.

Ans.

Research Design

A researcher is guided by the maxim that while discoveries cannot be planned, work must be planned, if it is to lead to discoveries. All researches begin with the preparation of a research design. To design means to plan.

A research design is the overall plan or programme of research. It is the general blueprint for the collection, measurement and analysis of data. It includes an outline of what the investigator will do from writing the hypotheses and their operational implications to the final analysis of data. Various uses of having a research design are as follows:

1. It provides answers to various questions, such as: What is the object of research? What data are needed and how will these. be gathered? What will be the time, place and sample of study? How will the data be analysed and interpreted? What will be the cost, time and labor needed in the study? What will be the level of accuracy desired in the results?

2. It acts as a standard and guidepost which helps the researcher in measuring his shortcomings and deviations in actual research later on..

3. It helps in carrying out research validity, objectively, accurately and economically. If the design is ideal, the researcher can rely on both his observations and his inferences. In the words of Fred N. Kerlinger, “Design is data discipline.” By telling the investigator what data he has to collect and what data he has to ignore and how a research design makes the study economical and accurate.

4. It forestall the possibility of a fruitless enquiry and acts as an insurance against future failure.

There are four parts of a research design:

1. Sampling design. It describes the various sampling methods to be used for selecting subjects for study.

2. Observational design. It describes the way in which the observations are to be made.

3. Statistical design. It describes the statistical techniques to be used for analysing and interpreting data.

4. Operational design. It describes how the entire operation of research is to be carried out.

Steps in Preparing a Research Design

Following are the essential steps involved in preparing a good research design:

(1) Setting up of objectives and formulation of a research problem: Research design will differ according to the purpose of research. For example, the study whose purpose is exploration would require a flexible research design but the design will have to be rigid in the case of a descriptive or diagnostic study. If the researcher lacks a clear understanding of the purpose of his research-its theoretical and practical implications he is likely to be insensitive to the nature of the problem to be investigated, the type of data needed, the form in which to get them, the appropriate analytic approach, and the level of precision required. It is the researcher’s perception or recognition of a problem based on his objectives that motivates research.

(2) Review of literature: As a next step, the researcher should go through all the existing literature relating to his problem. This is essential to know whether the problem has already been investigated before. If so, how and to what extent ?

(3) Selection of hypothesis: Hypotheses are tentative solutions of a problem. Except when the research is of the exploratory type, the researcher’s job is to clearly lay down these hypotheses for testing and verification. This will help him in delimiting the scope of his study.

(4) Designing the experiment: This step is very important in experimental research. It is on the effectiveness of this step that the ultimate reliability and validity of research findings depend. Under this step, the researcher will have to decide what type of experiments he is going to carry out in order to test his hypothesis. Whether he is going to carry out his experiments in the natural settings or in contrived settings? How is he going to control the effect of extraneous variables and so on. The experiment must be designed in such a way as to allow the results of study to be interpreted with a minimum degree of ambiguity.

If the research is of the non-experimental type the researcher must decide:

1. Various sources (primary or secondary) from which he is going to collect his data;

2. The type of enquiry (census or sample) which he is going to hold; and

3. The tools and techniques which he is going to make use of for collecting data.

(5) Processing, analysis and interpretation: All collected data need to be checked for their inconsistencies or inaccuracies. They are then analysed and interpreted. This involves selection of appropriate statistical techniques. Each statistical technique serve a special purpose and has a special set of assumptions which must be met before it can be used for analysis and interpretation. The researcher is, therefore, advised to consult a good text book on statistics before attempting to use any of these techniques.

(6) Report writing and publication: This is the penultimate step which should describe the target audience, style and contents of the research report.

(7) Preparing a working guide with time and budget estimates: Last though not the least important step is the preparation of a working guide which gives details about the funding, costing and timing of various steps of the research project.