The Five Components of a Qualitative Design
Five components are named in a single sentence, the stated count matches the list, and not one of the five is defined. This page works through what each name is doing and where the rest of the material touches it.
The sentence that carries the whole model
The count match is worth recording rather than assuming. Most counted sets in this topic are unstated — six characteristics, ten strengths, seven likenesses and so on are counts of items as printed, not counts the source asserts. Here the source says five and five appear, so you can safely write that the model has five components. You cannot safely write what any of them contains.
The model is attributed to a 2009 source and is therefore quoted from elsewhere. That source is cited in the body of the notes and does not appear in the topic's reference list, so a reader who wants the original cannot resolve it from the material supplied.
Component by component: what the material actually gives you
The components are never returned to as components, but three of the five names do reappear elsewhere in the topic under their own headings. The table maps each component to whatever the supplied material says about it anywhere, which is the most that can honestly be assembled.
THE FIVE COMPONENTS AGAINST THE REST OF THE SUPPLIED MATERIAL
| Component | Treated anywhere else in the material? | What you would still have to source |
|---|---|---|
| Research goals | No. The term appears here and nowhere else in either supplied document. | What a research goal is, how it differs from an aim or an objective, and how many a study should have |
| Conceptual framework | No. Named here, then named again two lines later as ‘theoretical framework’ in the presentation-determinants sentence, with no statement that the two are the same thing. | What a conceptual framework contains, how it is built, and whether it is the same as a theoretical framework |
| Research questions | Yes. The notes state that qualitative questions are How or What questions geared toward complex processes, exploration and discovery, and give two worked examples and four topic examples. | How a question is refined, tested or bounded; the material gives form and examples only |
| Methods | Yes. Five are defined on the slides — participant observation, direct observation, unstructured interviewing, case studies and documentation. | How to build the instrument that executes any of them; no guide, schedule, protocol or coding frame appears |
| Validity | Yes. Four alternative criteria are named and all four are defined — credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability. | How validity functions as a design component rather than as a post-hoc criterion; the notes never make that link |
The right-hand column records what the supplied material does not contain. It is not a reading list and it is not a claim about the concepts themselves.
What the source says about how the components relate
One qualifier does the whole of this work: the components are not necessarily ordered or sequential. That is a real and useful statement. It rules out reading the five as a workflow, and it means a change to any one of them can send you back to the others.
It is also all there is. The source supplies no map of which component constrains which, no account of what happens when two of them conflict, and no diagram. This page therefore does not show one. A flow of five stages would be a legible and helpful picture, and it would misrepresent a source that expressly denies sequence and supplies nothing in its place.
Where methods sit: three incompatible structures
Naming methods as one of five components of a design commits the material to a particular nesting: methods sit inside design, alongside goals and questions. Elsewhere in the supplied material two other structures are asserted for the same three terms, and no document acknowledges any other.
The three structures, as stated
- Methods are a component of design, alongside research goals, conceptual framework, research questions and validity — the study notes for this topic
- Methods sit inside methodology: data collection methods are ‘a major part of the methodological framework for the research project’ — the research design slides
- Methodology and methods are parallel categories: one slide defines methods as the techniques used to gather data, and a comparison table tabulates methodology and methods as two distinct rows
What that means for your chapter
- Whichever structure you adopt, some part of the supplied material will disagree with it
- Say which structure you are using, in one sentence, early in the chapter
- Do not switch between them — nesting methods inside methodology in one section and inside design in another is the commonest structural fault in this area
- The material offers no basis for choosing, so cite a methods text for the structure and use this material for the content
The parallel treatment is set out on methods and their place in a design. The point to carry away is that the disagreement is in the source and not in your reading of it.
Validity as a component, and the deck's denial of it
Making validity one of five design components is a strong claim. It says validity is something you build into a study at the design stage, not something assessed afterwards. The slide deck supplied for the same topic states that there is no point in trying to establish validity in any external or objective sense.
Using a five-name model on a real study
A list of five undefined names is still worth something: it is a completeness test. You can check a design against it without needing definitions, provided you are honest that the check is for presence rather than for quality.
A presence check, not a quality check
- Can you state the goal of the research in one sentence that is not a restatement of the research question?
- Is there a conceptual or theoretical framework in the document, named as such, rather than a literature summary standing in for one?
- Is the research question a How or What question, in the form the notes describe?
- Is the method one you can name and describe, and have you said how the instrument that executes it was built — which this material will not tell you?
- Is validity addressed in the design section, not only in a limitations paragraph at the end?
- If you changed any one of the five during the study, does the document say so — given that the source describes them as not necessarily ordered or sequential?
One last thing to state once and plainly. This topic's two stated learning objectives — design appropriate research tools, and evaluate types of variables — are both recorded as undelivered. The five-component model is the closest the material comes to a design framework, and it names a component called methods without ever showing you how to build one.
What to carry forward
- Five components: research goals, conceptual framework, research questions, methods, validity. The stated count matches the list — a rare verified match in this material.
- Not one of the five is defined. Research goals and conceptual framework appear nowhere else in the supplied material at all.
- Not necessarily ordered or sequential is the only statement the source makes about how they relate. No interaction map exists.
- Methods are placed inside design here, inside methodology in one place and parallel to methodology in another. Pick a structure, state it, and keep it.
- Validity is a design component in the notes and a pointless pursuit on one slide of the deck. Both are in the supplied material.
Frequently asked questions
What are the five components of a qualitative research design?
Research goals, conceptual framework, research questions, methods and validity. The supplied notes state that there are five and list five, and describe them as not necessarily ordered or sequential. The model is attributed to a 2009 source that the notes cite in the text and omit from their reference list.
What does each component contain?
The supplied material does not say. The five are named in a single sentence and never returned to, and no component is defined, explained or exemplified. Research questions, methods and validity are each treated elsewhere in the topic under their own headings, but never as components of this model.
Is conceptual framework the same as theoretical framework?
The material uses both labels two lines apart and never says whether they refer to the same thing. Conceptual framework is one of the five components; theoretical framework appears in the very next sentence among the things that determine how the components are presented. Neither is defined, so do not treat them as synonyms on this material's authority.
In what order should I work through the components?
The source expressly declines to give one — the components are described as not necessarily ordered or sequential. It also gives no account of how they interact, so there is no dependency map to work from. Use the five as a completeness check on a design rather than as a sequence of tasks.
How does this model relate to the ten-item design checklist in the same material?
The source never relates them. They are two separate structures from two different documents, with different vocabulary and different purposes, and one of them requires design decisions to be settled in advance while the rest of the topic describes qualitative design as emergent. Treat them as two independent tests rather than as one framework.
References and source attribution
- A 2009 work on qualitative research design, cited in the supplied notes as the source of the five components. The notes give a surname and a year only, and the work does not appear in the topic's reference list, so the reference cannot be completed from the material supplied.
- Merriam, S 2009, Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
- Denzin, N & Lincoln, Y (eds) 2005, Handbook of qualitative research, 3rd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks.
- Patton, M 2002, Qualitative research and evaluation methods, 3rd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks.
- The supplied teaching source: the study notes and slide deck on the nature of qualitative research, together with the module's research design material.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- List the five components of a qualitative research design and say what the supplied material tells me about each.
- Which of the five components does this material never mention again?
- Check a draft research design against the five components and tell me which are missing.
- How does the five-component model differ from the ten-item design checklist in the same material?
- What does the material say about the order in which the components should be settled?