Research design
Academic integrity
This guidance supports planning and revision of your own work. It does not offer ghostwriting, invented sources, or a guarantee that a journal will publish a manuscript.
Choose the smallest design that can answer the question. A single classroom studied carefully can be the right design. A comparison you cannot staff or access is not made rigorous by a more ambitious label. Draw the design before you collect anything: cases, moments, and what will be held aside.
Write the boundary in a sentence. Readers trust a design that says who was not included and why. They do not need a diagram that repeats the prose without adding a relationship.
A practical sequence
- Write what a satisfying answer would look like.
- Choose cases and a time span you can actually follow.
- Name the comparisons the design allows.
- State the boundary in one sentence.
Examples
- “Two Grade 10 classes in one campus, for six weeks, looking only at written feedback on essays. The study cannot speak for the district.”
