ABSTRACT
This chapter covers some of the basic issues regarding research designs that are used in conducting policy research and policy analysis. Policy research differs from basic social research or technical research in a number of ways. The aim is to produce results that provide a diverse audience with an increased understanding of a policy problem's context and issues, processes, intervention strategies, and their demonstrated effects. The political controversy that can brew over the conduct and results of a study suggests that researchers should exercise care in conceptualizing and conducting policy-related research that is of a high scientific standard. Researchers often begin to conceptualize a study by assessing the empirical literature that exists on a particular policy problem. Books on research design may cover basic issues such as variables and hypotheses, sampling, instrumentation, as well as a number of different types of designs and qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis.
