Key concepts for Research Design

In order to be able to develop the design of your research project in an informed way it is necessary to engage with some basic theoretical constructs underpinning the social science research. This section will therefore briefly introduce ideas relating to:

• the nature of knowledge
• types of research evidence
• the main approaches that can be used to gather this evidence i.e. a qualitative or quantitative approach
• the factors or variables that may be interacting in the system which you are researching
• an exploration of what might affect the validity and reliability of your data