Investigating Society » Research Design: From Topic to Pilot Study

Why research needs a design

Good research does not begin with handing out questionnaires. A sociologist first makes a plan, called the research design. Think of it like planning a journey: you decide where you are going, who is coming and how you will travel before you set off. If you skip the plan, you can waste weeks collecting evidence that cannot answer your question.

The syllabus lists seven stages. You will follow one made-up project through all of them: a researcher called Dr Mehra studying teenagers and the public library in a made-up town called Karlton.

Key terms:

• Research design: the plan for an investigation, made up of stages from choosing a topic to testing the methods.
• Aim: a general statement of what the research is trying to find out.
• Target population: the whole group of people the research is about.
• Operationalisation: turning an idea into something that can be measured, such as a question or an indicator.
• Indicator: something you can observe or count that stands for an idea.
• Pilot study: a small trial run of the research before the main study.

Stage 1: selection of topic

The researcher chooses the area of social life to study. Topics come from many places: something in the news, a gap in earlier research, a social problem, or the researcher's own interest. A topic should be interesting, useful and possible to research.

Dr Mehra notices that her local library is quiet in the afternoons. Her topic is: how teenagers use the public library.

Stage 2: aims

An aim says what the researcher wants to find out. It is broad and it is written as a purpose, not a prediction. A study may have one main aim and one or two smaller ones.

Dr Mehra's aim: to find out how often 14 to 16 year olds in Karlton use the public library, and why.

Stage 3: hypothesis

A hypothesis is a testable prediction about the relationship between two or more things. Evidence can then show it to be true or false. Positivists, who want to test ideas like scientists, tend to use hypotheses. Interpretivists often use only aims, because they want to explore people's meanings rather than test a prediction.

Notice that "teenagers who live near the library visit it more often" can be checked against evidence. "To find out why teenagers use the library" cannot be marked right or wrong, so it is an aim.

Stage 4: target population

The target population is everyone the researcher wants to say something about. It must be defined clearly, using age, place or another feature. Dr Mehra's target population is all 14 to 16 year olds living in Karlton. It is usually too big to study everyone, so she will later choose a smaller group from it. How she does that is covered in Sampling Frames and Sampling Techniques.

Stage 5: methods

Next the researcher decides how to collect the evidence. She chooses between methods such as questionnaires, interviews and observation, and between primary and secondary data. The choice depends on the aim, the target population and the type of data she wants. Dr Mehra decides to use a questionnaire to get numbers about visits, and a few short interviews to learn the reasons behind them. Each method is covered in detail in later lessons.

Stage 6: operationalisation

Ideas such as "library use" or "living near" are not measurable as they stand. Does "use" mean borrowing books, doing homework or meeting friends? Operationalisation means turning an idea into a clear, measurable question or indicator, so that everyone understands it in the same way.

Idea in the hypothesis	Operationalised as
Uses the library	Number of visits in the last four weeks
Lives near the library	Home is less than 1 km from the library
Lives far away	Home is 3 km or more from the library

Now the questionnaire can ask: "In the last four weeks, how many times did you visit Karlton Library?" Everybody answers the same question, and the answers are numbers that can be compared.

Stage 7: pilot study

A pilot study is a small trial run of the research with a few people from the target population, done before the real study. The pilot tests the research tools, not the hypothesis.

Dr Mehra tries her questionnaire on 10 teenagers. She finds that one question, "Do you use the library often?", means different things to different people. One student thinks "often" is once a week and another thinks it is once a year. She replaces it with the question about visits in the last four weeks. She also finds that the questionnaire takes 25 minutes, so she cuts it down. After the changes she can start the main study with more confidence.

The whole design on one page

• Topic: teenagers and the public library
• Aim: to find out how often 14 to 16 year olds use the library and why
• Hypothesis: teenagers who live near the library visit it more often than those who live far away
• Target population: all 14 to 16 year olds living in Karlton
• Methods: a questionnaire and a few short interviews
• Operationalisation: "use" = visits in the last four weeks; "near" = under 1 km
• Pilot study: 10 teenagers try the questionnaire and the wording is fixed

Exam-style question

A researcher plans to investigate whether students who have a part-time job get less sleep on school nights than students who do not.

(a) Define the term hypothesis. [2 marks]

(b) Identify two things a pilot study could help the researcher to check. [2 marks]

(c) Explain one strength and one limitation of carrying out a pilot study before the main research. [4 marks]