ABSTRACT
The components of a research design usually include a clearly framed question, theoretical and conceptual frameworks to guide the study, strategies for collecting and organising data, approaches to data analysis, and a plan for interpreting the analysis. This chapter shows how the author considered the scope, scale and her researcher role when designing an exploratory study of young children's understandings of gender and sexuality. It highlights how size matters when developing a research question, using a theoretical perspective and determining data-collection strategies for doing a small-scale qualitative study. Research designs also include the procedures or guidelines for doing something under certain conditions. Determining what these conditions are is an important part of designing to scale. Although a theoretical and conceptual framework will influence the kinds of research questions asked, determining what is going to be studied within the scope and scale of the study is one of the most challenging steps in research design.
