research-design

research-design IS a specific kind of methodology — a structured approach to designing research with specific protocols for data collection, analysis, and inference. A competent speaker would call it 'a research methodology' or 'a methodological framework'. Nearest kind: methodology.

research-design is built and maintained for the sake of producing generalizable findings. The designed purpose of research design is to maximize the extent to which results apply beyond the studied context. Servant (research-design) points at master (generalizability).

Direction tested: experimental-design INSTANCE_OF research-design. Specific→general. Is experimental-design a specific kind of research-design? Yes — experimental design (manipulating variables, controlling conditions) IS a form of research design methodology. A competent speaker would call it 'a research design.' The note pins the sense of research-design as the structured approach to designing research protocols, per its accepted definition.

Direction tested: case-study INSTANCE_OF research-design. Is case-study a specific kind of research-design? Yes. Case study is a specific research design (Yin, Stake) involving in-depth investigation of a bounded system using multiple evidence sources. It is a recognized type of research design alongside experiments, surveys, and ethnography.

Removal test: action research requires designing each iterative cycle (planning phase). Remove research-design — the capacity to systematically plan inquiry — and action-research's planning cycles cease to function as research. Constitutive, not incidental.

Removal test: meta-analysis requires systematic research design to operate. Without the capacity to design explicit protocols for evidence collection, inclusion criteria, and data synthesis, meta-analysis cannot function as a method — the removal test targets operation, not sayability.