Step 5: Designing Your Research
Design is where a settled question turns into a plan somebody else could execute. The source's guidance here is brief but unusually pointed — and the most instructive of its three worked examples is the one it declines to label.
Methods are only as good as the answers they give
The design step arrives with the question already fixed. What the source adds here is a criterion for judging methods and two constraints on how you deploy them.
Read the criterion as a test you can actually run. For every method in your plan, finish the sentence "this method answers the part of my question that asks…". A method that cannot complete the sentence is in the design for some other reason — availability, familiarity, or because it seemed thorough.
Thoroughness is the usual culprit. A design accumulates a survey, a document review, a set of interviews and a workshop because each one seemed defensible in isolation, and the result is four partial datasets and no time to analyse any of them properly. Fix the question first; see Step 4: Deciding Your Research Question.
Half your time is for writing
The source's suggested time split is the most concrete instruction in the whole step, and it is the one most often discovered too late to act on.
The source gives a ratio and nothing else. It sets no total duration, names no phases and gives no milestones, so the rule has to be applied against whatever schedule your programme imposes.
Applied at the start, the ratio is a design constraint rather than a scheduling note. It caps the collection you can afford, and that cap is a legitimate reason to cut a method.
WHAT THE HALF-AND-HALF RULE CHANGES
| Decision | Made without the rule | Made with the rule applied up front |
|---|---|---|
| How many methods | As many as seem defensible | Only as many as can be collected and analysed inside half the time |
| Collection window | Runs until the data feels sufficient | Bounded, with the boundary set before collection starts |
| When writing starts | After analysis, in whatever time is left | From the beginning, in parallel |
| What gets sacrificed under pressure | The writing, because it is last | A method, because the writing half is protected |
| Rewriting | Treated as optional polish | Treated as half of the second half, because the rule says rewriting, not writing |
The ratio is the source's. The consequences set out in columns two and three are synthesis.
Several methods, one or two carrying the bulk
The source states that in any relevant or practical research it is usually essential to use several types of research method, even if one or two finish up taking the bulk of the research time. Both halves of that sentence matter, and they pull against each other on purpose.
How to read the multi-method statement
One method rarely covers a whole question
Most practical questions contain a what and a why. Counts establish the pattern; accounts explain it. A design with only one of the two answers only part of its own question.
The bulk method carries the argument
The source expects one or two methods to consume most of the time. Decide in advance which one that is, because it determines where your effort, your access negotiation and your analysis capability all go.
Several is not many
The statement authorises a supporting method, not an unbounded collection plan. Every additional method has to survive the source's suggested time split as well as the answers-the-question test.
The published volume of master's project management research is instructive here, because it shows what practitioners with organisational access actually settled on. Survey and interview dominate, and almost every one of the seventeen designs pairs a literature review with one or two primary collection methods. That is an observation about the supplied volume rather than a published statistic; see Seventeen Worked Research Designs in Project Management.
Two major research designs, and where that framing strains
The source frames the design choice as binary. "There are two major research designs: qualitative research and quantitative research. Researchers choose one of these two types according to the nature of the research problem they want to observe and the research questions they aim to answer." Its shorthand for the difference is that the former involves more explicit judgment or interpretation, and the latter more counting and calculating.
The distinction itself is treated in full in Qualitative and Quantitative Research Compared. What belongs on this page is what the binary does to a design decision.
The source's three worked question-to-method pairings
Three pairings appear in the supplied material, once as a table in the notes and once on a slide. Read them as specimens of how far a design statement has to go before it can be executed — and how far these ones do not.
THREE PAIRINGS, AND WHAT EACH METHOD STATEMENT ACTUALLY ASKS YOU TO DO
| Question | The work the source's method statement requires | Label on the slide |
|---|---|---|
| What impact does changing work health and safety laws and policies have on engagement of volunteers? | Find the statements of policy and the policy documents; collect data on numbers and type of volunteering before and after; compare and interpret how the laws changed and how they were interpreted and adopted | Not labelled |
| How has on-line learning impacted on numbers of students enrolling in post-graduate courses? | Collect data on the various on-line courses; assess enrolment numbers before and after the strategy was introduced; then research and compare with other types of enrolment strategy | Quantitative |
| How do managers and workers apply the ethical standards of service organisations? | Interviews or questionnaires, with follow up of responses to specific applications | Qualitative |
Questions and method statements are the source's. The first row carries no type label anywhere in the supplied material; the other two are labelled on the slide.
State that labelling asymmetry plainly when you cite these examples. Two of the three are classified and one is not, and the unclassified one is the only design of the three that visibly does two different kinds of work.
The unlabelled one: volunteers and changing safety law
The method statement contains two strands. One is documentary — locating statements of policy and policy documents, then interpreting how the laws changed and how they were interpreted and adopted. The other is a count: numbers and type of volunteering, before and after.
Interpretation of documents and counting of volunteers are not the same activity, and the source's own binary has no single label for a design that does both. Its silence here is more honest than a label would have been.
What the statement leaves for you to supply is substantial: a definition of engagement, the dates that separate before from after, a source for the volunteering counts that existed on both sides of that boundary, and an account of what else changed in the same window. The last of those is the one that decides whether the study can say anything about impact at all.
The labelled quantitative one: on-line learning and enrolments
Two features are worth noticing at design stage. The first is that every element of it is secondary — course data and enrolment numbers already exist, gathered by others for other purposes. That makes it fast and makes provenance a limitation you have to write up rather than a detail.
The second is that the final clause, "research and compare with other types of enrolment strategies", is a second study bolted onto the first. Comparing strategies requires identifying them, obtaining equivalent data for each and establishing that they are comparable. Priced honestly against the half-and-half time rule, that clause is often the one to cut. This pairing is analysed from the methodology-selection angle in Choosing a Research Methodology.
The labelled qualitative one: ethical standards in service organisations
The word doing the most work in this question is apply. It sets the unit of analysis as behaviour, not opinion. A questionnaire that asks people what they believe about ethical standards would not answer it; the design has to reach what people actually do when a standard meets a specific case.
That is what the phrase "follow up of responses to specific applications" implies — a two-pass design in which the second pass returns to particular instances. The source presents interviews or questionnaires as interchangeable, which they are not for this purpose: following up on specific applications is straightforward in an interview and requires deliberate instrument design in a questionnaire.
The source names no data collection method beyond these labels, and defines none of them anywhere in the supplied material; see Data Collection Methods: Data as Evidence.
Writing the design down
None of the three source examples would be executable as printed. Each is a paragraph of intent. Your design has to go further, because the test of a design is that a competent person could run it without asking you what you meant.
What a design record has to state
- The one-sentence research question the design exists to answer
- Each method, named, with the part of the question it answers
- Which one or two methods will take the bulk of the time
- The population or documents each method will draw on, and how they are selected
- The boundaries — dates, sites, project types — that decide what is in and what is out
- How much data is enough for each method, as a number or a stopping rule
- The authority or approval each method requires, and its current status
- How the data from each method will be analysed, and where that technique comes from
- The time split, showing that the writing half has been protected
Design failures the source's own rules would have caught
Each of the failures below breaks a rule that is already in the supplied material. That makes them cheap to prevent and awkward to defend.
COMMON DESIGN FAILURES AND THE SOURCE RULE EACH ONE BREAKS
| What goes wrong | The rule it breaks |
|---|---|
| A method is included because it is available or familiar | Methods are only as good as the answers they give to research questions |
| Four methods, none finished | Several types of method, with one or two taking the bulk of the time |
| Collection runs to the deadline and writing is compressed into the last weeks | Plan half your time for the research and half for writing and rewriting |
| The design says "interviews" and nothing else | A method statement that cannot be executed by someone else is not yet a design |
| Collection begins while approval is pending | Before you commence any research, consider the ethical issues and obtain the right approvals |
| The design answers a wider question than the one that was set | Methods depend on the questions you want to answer, not on the topic |
The rules in column two are the source's; the failure descriptions are synthesis.
The approval failure is the one that cannot be recovered from, because the data may not be usable afterwards. Clear it before collection; see Step 6: Seeking Ethics Clearance.
What to carry forward
- Judge every method by the answer it gives to your question. If it cannot complete that sentence, it is not in the design for a research reason.
- Apply the half-and-half time rule at design stage, where it can still cap the collection plan.
- Expect several methods, but decide in advance which one or two are carrying the argument.
- The source's binary between qualitative and quantitative design does not accommodate its own first example. Say so rather than forcing a label.
- Two of the three worked pairings are labelled on the slide and one is not; the unlabelled one is the design that does two kinds of work at once.
- None of the three examples is executable as printed. Write your design to the point where someone else could start collecting on Monday.
Frequently asked questions
How do I decide how many methods to use?
The source says that in any relevant or practical research it is usually essential to use several types of research method, with one or two taking the bulk of the research time. Use that as a ceiling as well as a floor: each method must answer an identifiable part of your question, and the whole plan has to fit inside half of your available time.
What does the half-and-half time rule actually mean in practice?
It means allocating half your time to doing the research and half to writing and rewriting. Applied at design stage it caps how much collection you can afford. It is not a sequence — the source separately advises writing daily from the literature stage onward — so treat it as an allocation of effort rather than two consecutive phases.
Why is one of the source's three examples not labelled qualitative or quantitative?
The supplied material simply does not label it. The slide labels the on-line learning example quantitative and the ethical standards example qualitative, and leaves the work health and safety example without a type. Its method statement contains both a documentary strand and a counting strand, so no single label from the source's binary would fit it cleanly.
Can a design be both qualitative and quantitative?
The source does not provide a term for such a design, or any guidance on combining the two, even though its own first worked example appears to do exactly that. If your design does both, describe each strand separately, say what each contributes to the question, and take your terminology for the combination from a methods text you cite.
Is the design fixed once I have written it?
The source describes the research process as ever-changing rather than a fixed set of steps, and expects questions to evolve as evidence accumulates. Changes to the design are legitimate; unrecorded ones are not. Version the design record and note what forced each change, because your methodology chapter has to explain the design you actually ran.
References and source attribution
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- Naoum, S. G. 2013, Dissertation Research & Writing for Construction Students, 3rd ed., Routledge.
- Quinlan, C. 2011, Business Research Methods, 1st ed., Cengage Publishing.
- An edited volume of master's degree research projects in project management, 2018, academic publisher, 378 pp. — the exemplar volume whose seventeen designs are referred to on this page.
- The supplied teaching source: consolidated weekly teaching notes and slide material on developing a research topic, used here as the basis for all statements attributed to "the source".
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Which methods does my research question actually require, and which one should carry the bulk of the time?
- Apply the half-and-half time rule to my schedule and tell me what has to be cut.
- Turn my one-paragraph design intent into a design record someone else could execute.
- My design has both a counting strand and a documentary strand — how should I describe it?
- Check my design record for decisions I have deferred rather than made.