Research Methods and

Design
Definitions, Types,
Examples

Nika Targaladze
• Research methods are specific procedures for collecting and analyzing data.
Developing your research methods is an integral part of your research design
. When planning your methods, there are two key decisions you will make.

• First, decide how you will collect data. Your methods depend on what type
of data you need to answer your research question:
• Qualitative vs. quantitative: Will your data take the form of words or numbers?
• Primary vs. secondary: Will you collect original data yourself, or will you use data
that has already been collected by someone else?
• Descriptive vs. experimental: Will you take measurements of something as it is, or
will you perform an experiment?
Second, decide how you will analyze the
data.

• For quantitative data, you can use statistical analysis

methods to test relationships between variables.
• For qualitative data, you can use methods such as
thematic analysis to interpret patterns and meanings in
the data.
Methods for collecting data

• Qualitative vs. quantitative data

• Your choice of qualitative or quantitative data collection depends on the type
of knowledge you want to develop.
• For questions about ideas, experiences and meanings, or to study something
that can’t be described numerically, collect qualitative data.
• If you want to develop a more mechanistic understanding of a topic, or your
research involves hypothesis testing, collect quantitative data.
Primary vs. secondary research
• Primary research is any original data that you collect
yourself for the purposes of answering your research
question (e.g. through surveys, observations and
experiments). Secondary research is data that has
already been collected by other researchers (e.g. in a
government census or previous scientific studies).
• If you are exploring a novel research question, you’ll
probably need to collect primary data. But if you want
to synthesize existing knowledge, analyze historical
trends, or identify patterns on a large scale,
secondary data might be a better choice.
Descriptive vs. experimental
data
• In descriptive research, you collect data about your study
subject without intervening. The validity of your research
will depend on your sampling method.
• In experimental research, you systematically intervene in
a process and measure the outcome. The validity of your
research will depend on your experimental design.
• To conduct an experiment, you need to be able to vary
your independent variable, precisely measure your
dependent variable, and control for
confounding variables. If it’s practically and ethically
possible, this method is the best choice for answering
questions about cause and effect.
Methods for analyzing data:
Your data analysis methods will depend on the type of data you
collect and how you prepare it for analysis.
• Qualitative analysis methods
• Qualitative analysis is used to understand words, ideas, and
experiences. You can use it to interpret data that was collected:
From open-ended surveys and interviews, literature reviews,
case studies, ethnographies, and other sources that use text rather
than numbers.
Using non-probability sampling methods.
• Qualitative analysis tends to be quite flexible and relies on the
researcher’s judgement, so you have to reflect carefully on your
choices and assumptions and be careful to avoid research bias.
Quantitative analysis methods:
• Quantitative analysis uses numbers and statistics to understand frequencies,
averages and correlations (in descriptive studies) or cause-and-effect
relationships (in experiments).
• You can use quantitative analysis to interpret data that was collected either:
• During an experiment.
• Using probability sampling methods.
• Because the data is collected and analyzed in a statistically valid way, the
results of quantitative analysis can be easily standardized and shared among
researchers.
 What Is a Case-Control Study? |
Definition & Examples
• A case-control study is an experimental design that compares
a group of participants possessing a condition of interest to a
very similar group lacking that condition. Here, the participants
possessing the attribute of study, such as a disease, are called
the “case,” and those without it are the “control.”
• It’s important to remember that the case group is chosen
because they already possess the attribute of interest. The
point of the control group is to facilitate investigation, e.g.,
studying whether the case group systematically exhibits that
attribute more than the control group does.
Example: Case-control study
• You are interested in the effects of exposure to a
particular chemical on diagnoses of mesothelioma, a
type of cancer. Here, you would compare those exposed
(your case group) with those not exposed (your control
group) to the chemical in question.
• This would allow you to observe whether the people
exposed to the chemical had more instances of
mesothelioma than those who weren’t exposed.
When to use a case-control
study
• Case-control studies are a type of observational study
often used in fields like medical research,
environmental health, or epidemiology. While most
observational studies are qualitative in nature, case-
control studies can also be quantitative, and they often
are in healthcare settings. Case-control studies can be
used for both exploratory and explanatory research, and
they are a good choice for studying research topics like
disease exposure and health outcomes.
When to use a case-control
study
A case-control study may be a good fit for your
research if it meets the following criteria.

[Link] on exposure (e.g., to a chemical or a pesticide)

are difficult to obtain or expensive.
[Link] disease associated with the exposure you’re
studying has a long incubation period or is rare or
under-studied (e.g., AIDS in the early 1980s).
[Link] population you are studying is difficult to contact
for follow-up questions (e.g., asylum seekers).
Tip
• Many students confuse case-control studies with cohort studies,
particularly retrospective cohort studies. While they may seem similar
(and are indeed both types of retrospective observational studies), they
follow distinct research paths.
• Retrospective cohort studies use existing secondary research data,
such as medical records or databases, to identify a group of people
with a common exposure or risk factor and to observe their outcomes
over time. Case-control studies conduct primary research, comparing a
group of participants possessing a condition of interest to a very similar
group lacking that condition in real time.
• Additionally, cohort studies in general are more longitudinal in nature
and do not necessarily require a control group. While one may be
added if the investigator so chooses, members of the cohort are
primarily selected because of a shared characteristic among them.
Example: Healthcare case-control
study
• You are interested in the relationship between the dietary
intake of a particular vitamin (e.g., vitamin D) and the risk
of developing osteoporosis later in life. Here, the case
group would be individuals who have been diagnosed with
osteoporosis, while the control group would be individuals
without osteoporosis.
• You would then collect information on dietary intake of
vitamin D for both the cases and controls and compare the
two groups to determine if there is a relationship between
vitamin D intake and the risk of developing osteoporosis.
 Advantages of case-control
studies
• Case-control studies are a great choice if you have any
ethical considerations about your participants that
could preclude you from using a traditional
experimental design.
• Case-control studies are time efficient and fairly
inexpensive to conduct because they require fewer
subjects than other research methods.
• If there were multiple exposures leading to a single
outcome, case-control studies can incorporate that. As
such, they truly shine when used to study rare
outcomes or outbreaks of a particular disease.
Disadvantages of case-control
studies
• Case-control studies, similarly to observational studies,
run a high risk of research biases. They are
particularly susceptible to observer bias, recall bias, and
interviewer bias.
• In the case of very rare exposures of the outcome
studied, attempting to conduct a case-control study can
be very time consuming and inefficient.
• Case-control studies in general have low
internal validity and are not always credible.
 Cross-Sectional Study |
Definition, Uses & Examples
• A cross-sectional study is a type of research design in which
you collect data from many different individuals at a single
point in time. In cross-sectional research, you observe
variables without influencing them.

• Researchers in economics, psychology, medicine,

epidemiology, and the other social sciences all make use of
cross-sectional studies in their work. For example,
epidemiologists who are interested in the current prevalence
of a disease in a certain subset of the population might use a
cross-sectional design to gather and analyze the relevant
data.
Cross-sectional vs longitudinal
studies
• The opposite of a cross-sectional study is a
longitudinal study. While cross-sectional studies
collect data from many subjects at a single point in
time, longitudinal studies collect data repeatedly from
the same subjects over time, often focusing on a
smaller group of individuals that are connected by a
common trait.
Cross-sectional vs longitudinal
example
• You want to study the impact that a low-carb diet has on
diabetes. You first conduct a cross-sectional study with a
sample of diabetes patients to see if there are differences
in health outcomes like weight or blood sugar in those who
follow a low-carb diet. You discover that the diet correlates
with weight loss in younger patients, but not older ones.
• You then decide to design a longitudinal study to further
examine this link in younger patients. Without first
conducting the cross-sectional study, you would not have
known to focus on younger patients in particular.
When to use a cross-sectional
design
• When you want to examine the prevalence of some
outcome at a certain moment in time, a cross-sectional
study is the best choice.

• Example
You want to know how many families with children in
New York City are currently low-income so you can
estimate how much money is required to fund a free
lunch program in public schools. Because all you need
to know is the current number of low-income families, a
cross-sectional study should provide you with all the
data you require.
How to perform a cross-
sectional study
• To implement a cross-sectional study, you can rely on data
assembled by another source or collect your own.
Governments often make cross-sectional datasets freely
available online.
• International organizations like the World Health Organization
also provide access to cross-sectional datasets on their
websites.
• If you want to choose the variables in your study and analyze
your data on an individual level, you can collect your own
data using research methods such as surveys. It’s important
to carefully design your questions and choose your sample.
 Advantages and disadvantages of
cross-sectional studies
Because you only collect data at a single point in time,
cross-sectional studies are relatively cheap and less
time-consuming than other types of research.
Cross-sectional studies allow you to collect data from a
large pool of subjects and compare differences between
groups.
Cross-sectional studies capture a specific moment in
time. National censuses, for instance, provide a
snapshot of conditions in that country at that time.
Advantages and disadvantages of
cross-sectional studies
It is difficult to establish cause-and-effect relationships using
cross-sectional studies, since they only represent a one-time
measurement of both the alleged cause and effect.
Since cross-sectional studies only study a single moment in time,
they cannot be used to analyze behavior over a period of time or
establish long-term trends.
The timing of the cross-sectional snapshot may be
unrepresentative of behavior of the group as a whole. For
instance, imagine you are looking at the impact of psychotherapy
on an illness like depression. If the depressed individuals in your
sample began therapy shortly before the data collection, then it
might appear that therapy causes depression even if it is effective
in the long term.
 What Is a Cohort Study? |
Definition & Examples
• A cohort study is a type of observational study that follows a
group of participants over a period of time, examining how certain
factors (like exposure to a given risk factor) affect their health
outcomes. The individuals in the cohort have a characteristic or
lived experience in common, such as birth year or geographic
area.
• While there are several types of cohort study—including open,
closed, and dynamic—there are two that are particularly common:
prospective cohort studies and retrospective cohort studies.
• Cohort studies are particularly useful for identifying risk factors for
diseases. They can help researchers identify potential
interventions to help prevent or treat the disease, and are often
used in fields like medicine or healthcare research.
Example: Cohort study
• The Millennium Cohort Study is a large-scale cohort study
that began in 2000. It aims to investigate the health of children
born in the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2002.
• The initial cohort consisted of about 18,000 newborns. They
were enrolled in the study shortly after birth, with regular
follow-ups, medical examinations, and cognitive assessments to
track their physical, social, and cognitive development.
• The Millennium Cohort Study has generated numerous findings
on a wide range of health and social issues. In particular, it has
highlighted the importance of early childhood education for
cognitive development, and the impact of familial and social
factors on children’s health.
When to use a cohort study
• Cohort studies are a type of observational study that
can be qualitative or quantitative in nature. They can be
used to conduct both exploratory research and
explanatory research depending on the research topic.
• In prospective cohort studies, data is collected over
time to compare the occurrence of the outcome of
interest in those who were exposed to the risk factor
and those who were not. This can help ascertain
whether the risk factor could be associated with the
outcome.
When to use a cohort study
Tip

• Prospective cohort studies look forwards in time, to

examine the relationship between the exposure and the
outcome.
• Retrospective cohort studies look backwards in time
to examine the relationship between the exposure and
the outcome.
A cohort study could be a good fit
for your research if:
[Link] have access to a large pool of research subjects
and are comfortable and able to fund research
stretching over a longer timeline.
[Link] relationship between the exposure and health
outcome you’re studying is not well understood, and/or
its long-term effects have not been thoroughly
investigated.
[Link] exposure you’re studying is rare, or there are
possible ethical considerations preventing you from a
traditional experimental design.
Note
Many students confuse cohort studies with
case–control studies. While they are both types of
observational studies, they are not interchangeable
research methods.

• Cohort studies in general are more longitudinal in

nature. They usually follow the group studied over a
long period of time, investigating how certain factors
affect their health outcomes.
• Case–control studies rely on primary research,
comparing a group of participants already possessing a
condition of interest to a control group lacking that
Example: Prospective cohort study
You are examining the relationship between exposure
to pesticides and the incidence of a diagnosis of
Parkinson’s disease.
You recruit a group of healthy participants, all of whom
were free of Parkinson’s disease at the beginning of
your study. You then collect data on their exposure to
pesticides over time, tracking incidences of Parkinson’s
disease. After several years, your results conclude that
those who were exposed to higher levels of pesticides
had a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease
compared to those who were not.
Example: Retrospective cohort
study
• You are interested in how tick-borne diseases spread.
You interview a cohort of people who have been
diagnosed with Lyme disease. You ask about the events
surrounding their illness, their symptoms, and their
medical history prior to being bitten, in order to study
the spread of Lyme disease.
Advantages of cohort studies
• Cohort studies are better able to approach an estimation of
causality than other types of observational studies. Due to
their ability to establish temporality, multiple outcomes, and
disease incidence over time, researchers are able to
determine with more certainty that the exposure indeed
preceded the outcome. This strengthens a claim for a cause-
and-effect relationship between the variables of interest.
• Due to their long nature, cohort studies are a particularly good
choice for studying rare exposures, such as exposure to a
new drug or an environmental toxin. Other research designs
aren’t able to incorporate the breadth and depth of the
impact as broadly as cohort studies do.
Disadvantages of cohort studies
• Cohort studies can be extremely time-
consuming and expensive to conduct due to their long and
intense nature.
• Cohort studies are at risk for biases inherent to long-term
studies like attrition bias and survivorship bias, as participants are
likely to drop out over time. Measurement errors like
omitted variable bias and information bias can also confound your
analysis, leading you to draw conclusions that may not be true.
• Like many other experimental designs, cohort studies can raise
questions regarding ethical considerations. This is particularly
the case if the exposure of interest is harmful, or if there is no
known treatment for it. Prior to beginning your research, it is
critical to ensure that participation in your study is fully voluntary,
informed, and as safe as it can be for your research subjects.
What is the difference between a prospective
cohort study and a randomized controlled
trial?
• A prospective cohort study follows a group of
participants over a period of time to track the
development of an outcome of interest, while
a randomized controlled trial tests the effectiveness
of a specific intervention on a group of people.
• Randomized controlled trials are considered the “gold
standard” when attempting to argue for causality, as
they provide the most suitable conditions to do so.
Prospective cohort studies, while a solid and mostly
generalizable choice, are better suited for studying the
natural progression of diseases or health outcomes.