Welcome to Research Design Review! This blog is intended for the providers, users, and students of qualitative and/or quantitative research who have an interest in thinking about and discussing research design issues. At a time when there is a flurry of discussion concerning an increasing number of alternative approaches to more traditional forms of research – e.g., online surveys/groups, social  media, netnography, mobile research – it is reasonable to step back and ask the question, ‘but is it good research?’ That is, does the research design (regardless of method or mode) adhere to common standards or principles that are generally agreed to support some level of confidence in our research findings.

It is my hope that a discussion of fundamental research design issues will be as thought-provoking to individuals who provide research services as it is to the sponsors of our research and those responsible for implementing the results of research studies. As researchers we owe it to our sponsors to continually examine the integrity of our research, as well as provide the users of research with the tools (knowledge) they need to evaluate research recommendations and next steps.

I also hope this blog will prove to be a useful resource to graduate students studying research methods in psychology, sociology, healthcare, education, communications, anthropology, business, IT, and IS.  In fact, students may find this blog a complementary companion to Applied Qualitative Research Design: A Total Quality Framework Approach, a graduate-level textbook written by myself and Paul Lavrakas.

And finally, if it is not already obvious, this is not a how-to blog. This site will not discuss ’10 easy steps to conducting focus groups’ or ‘do-it-yourself questionnaire design for the novice’. There are plenty of other sources (and viewpoints) for this type of procedure-oriented information. Instead this blog is devoted to an appreciation of the research principles that should form the basis for all our efforts as well as to stimulating a constructive discourse of how these principles enter into the design process.