Designing Research

To complete a successful design you need to do the following:

1. State the Objective or Aim of the research.
2. Apply your design to the Setting or Topic.
3. Operationalise the key concepts in your design.
4. Choose a Method, explain WHY you consider it suitable for the topic, and say why it is better than another method you might have chosen.
5. Decide whether the sample is representative or non-representative. It is represntative if there is a suitable sampling frame.
6. If it is representative, choose a suitable Sampling Frame and explain why it is suitable for this topic.
7. Choose a suitable Sample, explain why it is suitable for this topic, and say why it is better than another method you might have chosen.

You can use the word OSMOS or ATMOS to help you remember these steps. It does not matter in which order you do them, but in the activity you will be guided to carry them out in the order in which they appear on this sheet.

To gain marks for Evaluation and Application, you MUST do these 2 things:

1. Refer to the topic at each stage - why is this method or sample suitable for this topic - Application (IA) marks.
2. Say why you have chosen to do something and why this is better than another course of action - Evaluation (EV) marks.