The Association for Qualitative Research
The Hub of Qualitative Excellence

Research design

The essential parameters of a research project, including factors such as its basic approach (qualitative, quantitative or some combination); the sample or target to be interviewed or observed; numbers of interviews or observations; research locations; questionnaire or discussion outline; tasks and materials to be introduced; and so on.

There are always many possible ways to address a specific research problem and the research design - the way the researcher formulates the problem and designs a project to address the client's issues - is a key part of how a research proposal is evaluated.

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