Module 2

A research design is a framework or blueprint for conducting the marketing research project.
It details the procedures necessary for obtaining the information needed to structure or solve
marketing research problems. In simple words it is the general plan of how you will go about
your research.

According to Kerlinger

Research design is the plan, structure and strategy of investigation conceived so as to obtain
answers to research questions and to control variance.

1. Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative strategy in which the researcher studies an intact cultural group
in a natural setting over a prolonged period of time by collecting primarily observational and
interview data. Ethnography is a type of qualitative research that gathers observations,
interviews and documentary data to produce detailed and comprehensive accounts of
different social phenomena. It is also aimed at those interested in considering the use of
ethnographic methods in their own research work. Ethnography is a design of inquiry coming
from anthropology and sociology in which the researcher studies the shared patterns of
behaviors, language, and actions of an intact cultural group in a natural setting over a
prolonged period of time.
Data collection often involves observations and interviews.
Ethnography is a way of studying a culture- sharing group as well as the final, written
product of that
Ethnographic Research
• Ethnography is a qualitative design in which the researcher describes and interprets the
shared and learned patterns of values, behaviors, beliefs, and language of a culture-sharing
group.
• An ethnography focuses on an entire cultural group. Granted, sometimes this cultural group
may be small (a few teachers, a few social workers), but typically it is large, involving many
people who interact over time (teachers in an entire school, a community social work group).
• Ethnographers study the meaning of the behavior, the language, and the interaction among
members of the culture-sharing group.
• Ethnography had its beginning in the comparative cultural anthropology conducted by early
20th-century anthropologists, such as Boas, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, and Mead.
Types of Ethnography
• There are many forms of ethnography, such as a confessional ethnography, life history,
autoethnography, feminist ethnography, ethnographic novels, and the visual ethnography
(photography and video)
• Two popular forms are: – the realist ethnography – the critical ethnography
The realist ethnography:
– it reflects a particular stance taken by the researcher toward the
individuals being studied
– an objective account of the situation
– written in the third person point of view
• The critical ethnography:
– The critical ethnography is a type of ethnographic research in which the authors advocate
for the emancipation of groups marginalized in society
– Critical researchers typically are politically minded individuals who seek, through their
research, to speak out against inequality and domination

• The major components of a critical ethnography include a value-laden orientation,

empowering people by giving them more authority, challenging the status quo, and
addressing concerns about power and control.
• A critical ethnographer will study issues of power, empowerment, inequality, inequity,
dominance, repression, hegemony, and victimization.

Procedures for Conducting an Ethnography

• Determine:
– if the needs are to describe how a cultural group works and to explore the beliefs, language,
behaviors, and issues such as power, resistance, and dominance
• Identify and locate a culture-sharing group to study.
– may require finding one or more individuals in the group who will allow the researcher in-a
gatekeeper or key informants (or participants).

• Select cultural themes or issues to study about the group

• Fix the type of ethnography
• Gather information where the group works and
lives
– Fieldwork
• Analysis and prepare a working set of rules or patterns as the final product of this analysis.
– the views of the participants (emic) – the views of the researcher (etic)

2. Phenomenological Research
Whereas a narrative study reports the stories of experiences of a single individual or several
individuals, a phenomenological study describes the common meaning for several individuals
of their lived experiences of a concept or a phenomenon. Phenomenologists focus on
describing what all participants have in common as they experience a phenomenon (e.g., grief
is universally experienced). The basic purpose of phenomenology is to reduce individual
experiences with a phenomenon to a description of the universal essence (a “grasp of the
very nature of the thing,” van Manen, 1990, p. 177).

Definition: A philosophical discussion about the basic ideas involved in conducting a

phenomenology. This turns on the lived experiences of individuals and how they have both
subjective experiences of the phenomenon and objective experiences of something in
common with other people. Thus, there is a refusal of the subjective–objective perspective,
and for these reasons, phenomenology lies somewhere on a continuum between qualitative
and quantitative research.

Types of Phenomenology
 Hermeneutic phenomenology
An educator, van Manen (1990) has written an instructive book on hermeneutical
phenomenology in which he describes research as oriented toward lived experience
(phenomenology) and interpreting the “texts” of life (hermeneutics; p. 4). Although van
Manen does not approach phenomenology with a set of rules or methods, he discusses it as a
dynamic interplay among six research activities. Researchers first turn to a phenomenon, an
“abiding concern” (van Manen, 1990, p. 31), which seriously interests them (e.g., reading,
running, driving, mothering). In the process, they reflect on essential themes, what constitutes
the nature of this lived experience. They write a description of the phenomenon, maintaining
a strong relation to the topic of inquiry and balancing the parts of the writing to the whole.
Phenomenology is not only a description but it is also an interpretive process in which the
researcher makes an interpretation of the meaning of the lived experiences. Icelandic
researchers offer an example of a hermeneutical phenomenology in their examination of the
experience of spirituality and its influence on the lives of ten persons receiving palliative care
and their wellbeing (Asgeirsdottir et al., 2013). Both the religious and nonreligious aspects
were emphasized and implications for the function of a theological approach in palliative care
are discussed.
 Transcendental or psychological phenomenology

It is focused less on the interpretations of the researcher and more on a description of the
experiences of participants. In addition, Moustakas focuses on one of Husserl’s concepts,
epoche, or bracketing, in which investigators set aside their experiences, as much as possible,
to take a fresh perspective toward the phenomenon under examination. Hence, transcendental
means “in which everything is perceived freshly, as if for the first time” (Moustakas, 1994, p.
34). Moustakas admits that this state is seldom perfectly achieved. However, we see
researchers who embrace this idea when they begin a project by describing their own
experiences with the phenomenon and bracketing out their views before proceeding with the
experiences of others. Besides bracketing, empirical, transcendental phenomenology draws
on the Duquesne Studies in Phenomenological Psychology (e.g., Giorgi, 1985, 2009) and the
data analysis procedures of Van Kaam (1966) and Colaizzi (1978). The procedures,
illustrated by Moustakas (1994), consist of identifying a phenomenon to study, bracketing out
one’s experiences, and collecting data from several persons who have experienced the
phenomenon. The researcher then analyses the data by reducing the information to significant
statements or quotes and combines the statements into themes. Following that, the researcher
develops a textural description of the experiences of the persons (what participants
experienced), a structural description of their experiences (how they experienced it in terms
of the conditions, situations, or context), and a combination of the textural and structural
descriptions to convey an overall essence of the experience. Transcendental phenomenology
was used in the dissertation work to examine the experiences and perceptions of 13
developmental math students (Cordes, 2014). The essence of the participant experience
involved descriptions of isolation, self-doubt, and clouding of success.

Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research

• Determine the research approach
The type of problem best suited for this form of research is one in which it is important to
understand several individuals’ common or shared experiences of a phenomenon. It would be
important to understand these common experiences in order to develop practices or policies,
or to develop a deeper understanding about the features of the phenomenon.

• Identify a phenomenon of interest to study, and describe it.

Examples of a phenomenon include emotional states such as anger and social constructs such
as professionalism. A phenomenon can also involve gaining understandings of a clinical
descriptor—for example, what it means to be underweight or a professional descriptor like
what it means to be a wrestler. Moustakas (1994) provides numerous examples of phenomena
that have been studied. van Manen (1990) identifies the phenomena such as the experience of
learning, the beginning of fatherhood, and riding a bicycle.

• Recognizes and specify the broad philosophical assumptions of phenomenology.

 For example, one could write about the combination of objective reality and individual
experiences. These lived experiences are furthermore “conscious” and directed toward an
object. To fully describe how participants view the phenomenon, researchers must bracket
out, as much as possible, their own experiences.

• Collection of data.
Polkinghorne (1989) recommends that researchers interview from 5 to 25 individuals who
have all experienced the phenomenon. The participants are asked two broad, general
questions
(Moustakas, 1994): What have you experienced in terms of the phenomenon? What contexts
or situations have typically influenced or affected your experiences of the phenomenon?
Other open-ended questions may also be asked, but these two, especially, focus attention on
gathering data that will lead to a textual and structural description of the experiences, and
ultimately provide an understanding of the common experiences of the participants. Other
forms of data may also be collected, such as observations, journals, poetry, music, and other
forms of art. van Manen (1990) mentions taped conversations; formally written responses;
and accounts of vicarious experiences of drama, films, poetry, and novels.

• Phenomenological data analysis

Phenomenological data analysis steps are generally similar for all psychological
phenomenologists who discuss the methods (Moustakas, 1994; Polkinghorne, 1989).
Building on the data from the first and second research questions, data analysts go through
the data (e.g., interview transcriptions) and highlight “significant statements,” sentences, or
quotes that provide an understanding of how the participants experienced the phenomenon.
Moustakas 128 (1994) calls this step horizonalization. Next, the researcher develops clusters
of meaning from these significant statements into themes.

• Develop textural and structural descriptions.

The significant statements and themes are then used to write a description of what the
participants experienced (textural description). They are also used to write a description of
the context or setting that influenced how the participants experienced the phenomenon,
called structural description or imaginative variation. Moustakas (1994) adds a further step:
Researchers also write about their own experiences and the context and situations that have
influenced their experiences. We like to shorten Moustakas’s procedures and reflect these
personal statements at the beginning of the phenomenology or include them in a methods
discussion of the role of the researcher (Marshall & Rossman, 2015).

• Essence of the phenomenon; From the structural and textural

Descriptions, the researcher then writes a composite description that presents the “essence” of
the phenomenon, called the essential, invariant structure (or essence). Primarily this passage
focuses on the common experiences of the participants. For example, it means that all
experiences have an underlying structure (grief is the same whether the loved one is a puppy,
a parakeet, or a child).

• Present the understanding of the essence of the experience in written form.

The practice of phenomenological inquiry is considered by Max van Manen (2014) to be
inseparable from the practice of writing. He goes on to explain that one of the challenges with
writing is that “one must bring into presence a phenomenon that cannot be represented in
plain words” (p. 370). There are numerous “ways” for communicating phenomenological
research including by systematic exploration, meaning the phenomenon is placed in the
context of existential (e.g., temporality or spatiality) or by organizing the account reflective
of an ever-deepening understanding of the phenomenon experienced. A general reporting
structure includes an introduction to familiarize the reader with the phenomenon and in some
cases, a personal statement of experiences from the researcher (Moustakas, 1994); research
procedures to provide a rationale for the use of phenomenology, and philosophical
assumptions and details about data collection and analysis; a report of how the phenomenon
was experienced with significant statements; and a conclusion with a composite description
of the essence of the phenomenon.

3. Case Study Research

Case study design. The mixed methods case study design involves the use of one or more
core designs (i.e., convergent, explanatory sequential, exploratory sequential) within the
framework of a single or multiple case study design. The intent of this design is to develop or
generate cases based on both quantitative and qualitative results and their integration. We
have found two basic variants of this design. One is a deductive approach where researchers
establish the cases at the outset of the study and document the differences in the cases
through the qualitative and quantitative data. A second is more of an inductive approach
where the researcher collects and analyzes both quantitative and qualitative data and then
forms cases—often multiple cases—and then makes comparisons among the cases.
Case studies are a design of inquiry found in many fields, especially evaluation, in which the
researcher develops an in-depth analysis of a case, often a program, event, activity, process,
or one or more individuals. Cases are bounded by time and activity, and researchers collect
detailed information using a variety of data collection procedures over a sustained period of
time (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2009, 2012, 2014).
It is presented as a choice (what to be studied), a strategy, methodology, etc)
• Case study research involves the study of an issue explored through one or more cases
within a bounded system (i.e., a setting, a context).
• Case study research is a qualitative approach in which the investigator explores a bounded
system (a case) or multiple bounded systems (cases) over time, through detailed,
in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information (e.g., observations,
interviews, audiovisual material, and documents and reports), and reports a case description
and case-based themes.

Types of case studies

• Threetypes:
 The single instrumental case study- An issue & a bounded case
 The collective or multiple case study – One issue & multiple cases
 Intrinsic case study-Case itself but that case presents an unusual or unique situation
(eg: evaluating a program, or studying a student having difficulty)

Procedures for Conducting a Case

• Determine if a case study approach is appropriate
clearly identifiable cases with boundaries and seeks to provide an in depth understanding of
the cases or a comparison of several cases.

• Identify their case or cases

consider the intent and type of case study. The case(s) selected may involve an individual,
several individuals, a program, an event, or an activity.

• Data Collection
– typically extensive, drawing on multiple sources of information, such as direct observation,
participant observation, physical artifacts, records, interviews, documents, and audiovisual
materials

• Analysis
The type of analysis of these data can be a holistic analysis of the entire case or an embedded
analysis of a specific aspect of the case.
– Holistic analysis of the entire case
– Embedded analysis of the specific aspect of the case

• Interpretation and reporting

– Researcher gives meaning to the cases
the researcher interprets and give meanings to the cases and record it.

4. Grounded theory
The intent of a grounded theory study is to move beyond description and to generate or
discover a theory, a “unified theoretical explanation” for a process or an action (Corbin &
Strauss, 2007, p.107)
A key idea is that this theory development does not come “off the shelf” but rather is
generated or “grounded” in data from participants who have experienced the process (Strauss
& Corbin, 1998).
Thus, grounded theory is a qualitative research design in which the inquirer generates a
general explanation (a theory) of a process, an action, or an interaction shaped by the views
of a large number of participants.
Ground Theory is a design of inquiry from sociology in which the researcher derives a
general, abstract theory of a process, action, or interaction grounded in the views of
participants. This process involves using multiple stages of data collection and the refinement
and interrelationship of categories of information (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2007,
2015).
This qualitative design was developed in 1967 by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss
Grounded theorists held that theories should be “grounded” in data from the field, especially
in the actions, interactions, and social processes of people.
Glaser has criticized Strauss’s approach to grounded theory as too prescribed and structured
(Glaser, 1992).
More recently, Charmaz (2006, 2014) has advocated for a constructivist grounded theory
Another recent grounded theory perspective is that of Clarke (Clarke, 2005; Clarke, Friese, &
Washburn, 2015) who, along with Charmaz, seeks to reclaim grounded theory from its
“positivist underpinnings”

The aim of a grounded theory approach

– to generate or discover a theory
• Theory not from the shelf but grounded in the data collected from the participants who have
experienced the process.
Grounded theory design was developed in sociology in 1967 by two researchers, Barney
Glaser and Anselm Strauss.
• theories should be "grounded" in data from the field, especially
– in the actions
– interactions, and
– social processes of people.
• Strauss was too prescribed and structured
Two types of grounded theory studies
• Systematic procedures – Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin
The researcher typically conducts 20 to 30 interviews based on several visits “to the field” to
collect interview data to saturate the categories.
Saturate the categories - Find information that continues to add to them until no more can be
found.
• Theoretical Sampling:
The process of data collection for generating theory whereby the analyst jointly collects,
codes and analyses his data and decides what data to collect next and where to find them in
order to develop his theory as it emerges”.
The process of collecting, coding and analyzing data in a simultaneous manner in order to
generate a theory. 

Zig zag process

Data collection in a grounded theory study is a zigzag process: out to the field to gather
information, into the office to analyze the data, back to the field to gather more information,
into the office, and so forth.
Constructivist Approach - charmaz
Charmaz advocates for a social constructivist perspective that includes emphasizing diverse
local worlds, multiple realities, and the complexities of particular worlds, views, and actions.
Constructivist grounded theory, according to Charmaz (2006, 2014), lies squarely within the
interpretive approach to qualitative research with flexible guidelines, a focus on theory
developed that depends on the researcher’s view, learning about the experience within
embedded, hidden networks, situations, and relationships as well as making visible
hierarchies of power, communication, and opportunity.

Procedures for conducting grounded theory

• Determine:
– when a theory is not available to explain a process – No models in qualitative mode
– Incomplete theories
• Research question
– Start with - What was the process? How did it unfold?
– then to different aspects of it.
• Data Collection-
– Interviews, observation, documents, audio-visual materials
• DataAnalysis:
– open coding: the researcher forms categories of information about the phenomenon being
studied by segmenting information. Within each category, the investigator finds several
properties, or subcategories, and looks for data to dimensionalize, or show the extreme
possibilities on a continuum of, the property.

– In axial coding: assembles the data in new ways, a coding paradigm or logic diagram (i.e.,
a visual model) in which the researcher identifies a central phenomenon (i.e., a central
category about the phenomenon), explores causal conditions (i.e., categories of conditions
that influence the phenomenon), specifies strategies (i.e., the actions or interactions that result
from the central phenomenon), identifies the 'context and intervening conditions (i.e., the
narrow and broad conditions that influence the strategies), and delineates the consequences
(i.e., the outcomes of the strategies) for this phenomenon.

– selective coding, the researcher may write a 'story line" that connects the categories.
Alternatively, propositions or hypotheses may be specified that state predicted relationships.

 Develop and visually portray a conditional matrix

Finally, the researcher may develop and visually portray a conditional matrix that elucidates
the social, historical, and economic conditions influencing the central phenomenon.
– memoing, a process in which the researcher writes down ideas about the evolving theory
throughout the process of open, axial, and selective coding.

5. Narrative research
Narrative research is a design of inquiry from the humanities in which the researcher studies
the lives of individuals and asks one or more individuals to provide stories about their lives
(Riessman, 2008). This information is then often retold or restoried by the researcher into a
narrative chronology. Often, in the end, the narrative combines views from the participant’s
life with those of the researcher’s life in a collaborative narrative (Clandinin & Connelly,
2000).
Narrative research originated from
Literature, history, anthropology, sociology, sociolinguistics, education, yet different fields of
study have adopted their own approaches (Chase, 2005).

FEATURES OF NARRATIVE STUDIES

 Collect stories from individuals (Riesmann, 2008)
 tell of individual experiences
 occur within specific places or situations
 gathered through many different forms of data
 analyzed using varied strategies
 heard and shaped by the researchers into a chronology (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000)
 contain turning points (Denzin, 1989)
Types of Narrative research
By the analytic strategies used by authors
Analysis of narratives
• (create descriptions of themes that hold across stories or taxonomies of types of stories)
Narrative analysis
• (researchers collect descriptions of events or happenings and then configure them into a
story)
A biographical study: Researcher narrate the experiences of another person’s life
 Autobiography: The researcher himself writes his own life experience
• Narrativesmay be guided by a theoretical lens or perspective.
– Eg: Feminist perspective

Procedures
• Determine whether the topic suits the narrative approach
• Select participants - one or more individuals who have stories or life experiences
• Collect information- about the context of these stories (culture, experience, etc)
• Analyze the participants' stories, and then "restory' them into a framework that makes sense.
• Collaborate- with participants by actively involving them in the research.
 6. Content analysis
Content Analysis is a research technique used to make replicable and valid inferences by
interpreting and coding textual material. By systematically evaluating texts (e.g., documents,
oral communication, and graphics), qualitative data can be converted into quantitative data.
Content analysis is a method for summarizing any form of content by counting various
aspects of the content. ... For example, an impressionistic summary of a TV program, is not
content analysis. Nor is a book review: it's an evaluation. Content analysis, though it often
analyses written words, is a quantitative method.

7. Biographical research
Biographical research is a qualitative research approach aligned to the social interpretive
paradigm of research. The biographical research is concerned with the reconstruction of life
histories and the constitution of meaning based on biographical narratives and documents.

8. A literature reviews
A literature review surveys books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a
particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description,
summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being
investigated.
The literature review accomplishes several purposes. It shares with the reader the results of
other studies that are closely related to the one being undertaken. It relates a study to the
larger, ongoing dialogue in the literature, filling in gaps and extending prior studies (Cooper,
2010; Marshall & Rossman, 2016). It provides a framework for establishing the importance
of the study as well as a benchmark for comparing the results with other findings. All or some
of these reasons may be the foundation for writing the scholarly literature into a study (see
Boote & Beile, 2005, for a more extensive discussion of purposes for compiling a literature
review in research). Studies need to add to the body of literature on a topic, and literature
sections in proposals are generally shaped from the larger problem to the narrower issue that
leads directly into the methods of a study.

Formulation of research question (RQ)

Formulation of research question (RQ) is an essentiality before starting any research. It aims
to explore an existing uncertainty in an area of concern and points to a need for deliberate
investigation. ... After narrowing the focus and scope of the research subject, researcher
frames a RQ and then evaluates it.
Steps to developing a research question:
 Choose an interesting general topic. Most professional researchers focus on topics
they are genuinely interested in studying.
 Do some preliminary research on your general topic.
 Consider your audience.
 Start asking questions.
 Evaluate your question.
 Begin your research.
Sources of Data Collection

1. Natural Settings

Qualitative researchers collect field data at the locations where participants experience the
problem or issue to be studied. Qualitative researchers do not change the environmental
settings and activities of the participants. Information is gathered by talking directly to people
and seeing them act directly in a natural context. It means qualitative researchers study things
as they are. ... Rather than removing people from their settings, qualitative researchers go to
the people, allowing for the gathering of sensory data: what is seen, felt, heard, and even
tasted or smelled.

2. Public and Private documents ((ranging from private to public)

Public Documents: Public Documents are those documents which are authenticated by a
public officer and subsequently which is made available to the public at large for reference
and use. Public documents also contain statements made by the public officer in their official
capacity, which acts as admissible evidence of the fact in civil matters. These documents are
also known as public records as these are issued or published for public knowledge. For
example, Village Records of the villages

Private documents: Private documents are those documents which are prepared between
persons for their usual business transactions and communications. These documents are kept
in the custody of the private persons only and are not made available to the public at large.
Certified copies of the private documents are generally not considered as evidence unless
there is proof of the original copy is provided. Example: Correspondence between persons;
matter published in newspapers, books; deed of the contract; memorandum; sale deed.

3. Archives
Archival data refer to information that already exists in someone else’s files. Originally
generated for reporting or research purposes, it’s often kept because of legal requirements, for
reference, or as an internal record. In general, because it’s the result of completed activities,
it’s not subject to change and is therefore sometimes known as fixed data.Archives are often
stored as paper files or on electronic storage – computer disks, CDs, DVDs, etc. – and may
include photographs and audio and video recordings as well. It may also take the form of
encoded information expressed in numbers, or in computer language. Computer files, of
course, may include various media and text, all in the same place.Many organizations have
archives so large that they store most of the material off-site, either with a data storage firm,
or in their own or a rented facility. Some archives are made available on a website maintained
by the government or other organization.

4. Newspaper
audiovisual materials (including
materials such as photographs, compact disks,
and videotapes).