Confirmatory research design

The degree to which a research design needs to be followed precisely is quite different in different forms of research.

Biddle and Anderson characterise research that "presumes to establish objective information about social behaviour that can be generalized" (p.231) as a confirmatory perspective, where “Studies…give stress to careful research design, to reliable measurement of variables, to statistical manipulation of data, and to the detailed examination of evidence. Hypotheses are stated to indicate knowledge claims, and these are judged to be confirmed if they are supported by inferential statistics that reach arbitrary levels of significance. Confirmed hypotheses (‘findings’) are presumed to generalise to populations or contexts similar to the one studied.” Biddle & Anderson, 1986: 231.

Biddle, B. J., & Anderson, D. S. (1986). Theory, methods, knowledge and research on teaching. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Teaching (3rd ed., pp. 230-252). New York: Macmillan.

“However, anyone planning to use an ‘experimental’ design to test a hypothesis must plan the research in detail at the start, and so the techniques of data collection and analysis need to be firmly established before any data are collected. Research claiming to use this type of methodology, which involved substantive changes (in such matters as how ‘subjects’ are assigned to groups, or which statistical tests were to be applied) once the research was underway, is open to being challenged as failing to follow accepted procedures and so is potentially invalid.” (Taber, 2013: 79)

However, in other forms of research, designs may be much more flexible.

Taber, K. S. (2013). Classroom-based Research and Evidence-based Practice: An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.

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