1. Moving from research question to
research design: understanding
which methods are most appropriate
Dorothy Faulkner and Cindy
Kerawalla 1

2. Your probationary reviewers will:
Review your research project and plans.
Assess your skills development against a
set of appropriate benchmarks.
Make a recommendation about whether
registration should continue and be
confirmed for a PhD.
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3. You will need to complete
A probation report
A mini-viva
An oral presentation
A summary of PhD skills development
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4. The‘What’ the‘Why’& the‘How’
Your probation reviewers will be looking for clear
answers to these questions:
3. What is the main research question, focus of interest
or central thesis and why is this interesting?
4. What are we going to learn as the result of the
proposed project that we do not know now?
5. Why is this worth knowing (theoretical, methodological,
applied contribution)?
6. How will we know that the arguments and conclusions
are valid?
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5. This session will ask you to think about:
 Your disciplinary and theoretical perspective
 The implications of this for your research question,
argument or central thesis
 How you can unpack your research question/argument
 Your research design, method of enquiry and preliminary
analytical perspective
 What types of evidence you need and why you need it
 Where you will get it from
 When you will collect it
 Who you will collect it from
 Research ethics
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6. Different disciplinary perspectives:
Examples of PhD research questions/theses
What is the role of consumption in the everyday life of young
mothers? How might young mother’s consumption be regulated by
poverty? How might young women be/feel excluded from consumer
practices by poverty? How might the pressures of consumption be felt
as oppressive?
The fall of communism altered the population structure of the Czech
Republic and led to profound social and economic change.
Climate change stipulates capital flows and migration: How does this
affect regional economies?
The cultural dominance of Freudian theory has obscured the pre-
history of child psychiatry in Britain as it emerged from literary sources
in the second half of the nineteenth century.
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7. Unpacking a research question from the
perspective of technology enhanced learning
How are digital technologies appropriated as
tools for learning and how does the conduct
and experience of scripted inquiry learning
mediate and change the activities of learning?
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8. Signalling the theoretical/disciplinary focus
How are digital technologies appropriated as
tools for learning and how does the conduct
and experience of scripted inquiry learning
mediate and change the activities of learning?
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9. Research question: theoretical focus
 Appropriation
 Tools for learning
 Mediation
are terms for key theoretical concepts. Use of these terms
locates this question within the sociocultural tradition and
signals the researchers theoretical stance.
You will need to justify WHY your research is located
within a particular theoretical framework, WHAT its key
concepts are, WHAT alternative frameworks there are and
WHY you have rejected them.
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10. Getting more specific: identifying key
areas of enquiry
In what ways do scripted inquiry learning
activities develop children's learning skills?
In this project, learning skills were identified as:
 Working collaboratively
 The ability to argue and debate from evidence
 Judge the veracity of source information
 Deal with noise in data
 Construct appropriate visualisations
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11. Workshop activity 1:
Your research question/thesis
• Identify your main research question, central
thesis or area of enquiry on the card
• Identify a possible specific area of investigation
• Swap cards with the person sitting next to you
• Explain how what you have written signals your
disciplinary and theoretical perspective
• Discuss what you expect to learn from your
research and how it will contribute to your area
15 minutes
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12. Situated Inquiry learning study:
Research design
 Comparative case study design – two schools -
main comparison Socio-economic status and
educational achievement
 A series of quasi-experimental intervention
studies with pre and post test measures over
three years with 12 – 15 year-old pupils
 In classes where teachers were using scripted
inquiry learning software
 Videos of classroom interactions, interviews,
standardised tests, attitude questionnaires
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13. Some sources of
quantitative evidence
 Large Government data sets (e.g. household survey,
census, school league tables) i.e.
population/demographic data
 Research data archives (e.g. ESRC) – previous
researchers’ data sets
 Linguistic corpora
 Standardised test data (e.g. IQ tests, personality tests,
mental health, job satisfaction indices, happiness
indices)
 Bespoke questionnaire & survey data from instruments
you have designed
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14. Some sources of
qualitative evidence
 Transcripts of conversation & dialogue
 Documents and texts (letters, diaries, household
accounts, draft manuscripts, annotated scores)
 Archives (film, newspapers, public records, Hansard)
 Activity protocols and log files of software use,
 Research diaries and field notes
 Transcripts of interviews and focus groups
 Children’s school work
 Photographs and/or audio visual records
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15. Workshop activity 2
 Jot down a couple of sources of evidence that
you might use
 Share these with your table
 Feedback to group
5 minutes
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16. Workshop activity 3:
Research design
 Make brief notes about a possible research
design
 What types of evidence will you need?
How will you know if it is reliable?
 Swap notes - explain to your partner how this
will allow you to answer your research question
or how you expect this to support your argument
or central thesis
 Discuss with others at your table
15 minutes 16

17. Workshop exercise 3
Reminders
WHAT have previous researchers done
WHAT are you going to do
HOW are you going to do it
WHEN will you do it
WHERE will you do it
WHO or WHAT will be your sources of evidence
WHAT form will your data take
HOW will this help answer your research
question/support your central thesis?
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15 minutes

18. Who, how, what, when, where
Ethics
 When you have worked out your research design, you
will need to submit an ethics pro forma to the OU HREC
https
://intranet-gw.open.ac.uk/strategy-unit/committees/HREC/inde
 You must adhere to OU & professional ethics guidelines
 Example issues: permissions, use of images online,
anonymity, children and parent consent mismatches,
mixed levels of consent within a group or class, data
protection, copyright, disclosure of sensitive data,
conflicts of interest etc.
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19. Workshop Activity 4
Make a note of an ethics issue you
anticipate arising in your research
With your group, share and discuss how
you might deal with this
10 mins
(HREC pro forma as resource) 19

20. How – the practicalities?
Who, what, when, where, why
• Sample and location
• Expenses
• Travel
• Procedure: equipment
• Time span
• Access
• Your skills: Training in camera use? Interviewing skills?
• Building up working relationships (cake!)
• Keeping participants on board (benefits to them?)
• Transcribing (who, time, money)
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21. Resources - websites
http://www.phdtips.com/
http://www.phd2published.com/
http://thethesiswhisperer.wordpress.com/
http://researchproposalguide.com/
http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/1220/Mana
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22. Resources - Books
 Dunleavy, P. (2003) Authoring a PhD: How to
Plan, Draft, Write and Finish a Doctoral Thesis
or Dissertation (Palgrave Study Guides),
Palgrave Macmillan
 Marshall, S. & Green, N. (2010) Your PhD
Companion: The Insider Guide to Mastering the
Practical Realities, How to Books Ltd
 Petre, M. & Rugg, G. (2010) The Unwritten
Rules of PhD Research (Open Up Study Skills),
Open University Press
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24. Q & A session
• CARDS
• PHOTOCOPYING:
• ETHICS PROFORMA
• Last two slides
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