injuries that consequent from playing football.

Descriptive research design

A descriptive research design is conducted by observing the life of the group or individual without influencing it in any way.

The way I would conduct this design is a) statement of the problem, to wit: players experience injuries during training and competition. I would like to categorize and specify the specific injuries received. (b) Identification of information needed to solve the problem. — In this case, I would need to observe one or more football teams that are training or involving themselves in competitive projects. (c) Identification of target population and decision of sampling procedure — My target population will be a certain age of football players (as part of endeavor to ascertain that confounding variables are omitted). The age may likely be 18-22. I will select from ten or more college football teams. Sample will be convenience. (d) Design of procedure for information collection — I will investigate records of accidents that occurred from football sports during the last 5 years. I will speak to coaches regarding description and incidence of accidents. I will conduct focus groups, and interview participants. More to the point of the methodology, I will closely observe the playing during training and competition myself for a certain prolonged period of time (perhaps two years) during periods when accidents are supposedly more apt to occur and record the characteristics of occurred accidents. (e) Collection of information will be gathered by observation, recording, and writing. (f) Analysis of information will be conducted by close assessment and, perhaps, by one or more objective assistants who will help observe / decode information / interviewed. (e) Generalizations will follow form the observation.

Explanatory research design

Descriptive seeks to explain what is going on. Explanatory asks: why is it going on. Here, focus will be shifted from observing the players to action to analysis of the accidents themselves and inverting the question — why are these specific accidents occurring.

Conducting a meta-analysis of football-related accidents, I will single out the accidents that seem to be most prevalent in the field. I will also target and participate in specific online groups that are dedicated to discussion on football and chat groups where football players are likely to converge. I will send surveys to coaches of various football teams, and via focus groups and open-ended interviews with football players of the above mentioned 5 schools will attempt to find out the most prevalent accidents that occur during football playing and why they occur. The information will be collected and assessed in a similar manner to that of the descriptive design.

Predictive research design

The predicative research design predicts that x causes y. In this case, I may seek to predict that (tongue-in cheek) red shoelaces, coffee in the morning, or a skiff with one’s girlfriend causes rate of accidents to leverage during a particular period, or causes specific accidents to occur.

I would design this particular study by randomly selecting a cross-sectional variety of football players with as large a sample as possible. I would have the participants fill out a survey of accidents that occurred to them and their team during the last 10 years. This would tell me the most common accidents. I would then supplement this with open-ended interviews where I would seek to investigate whether and if so the characteristics of psychological events that caused these accidents to occur. Collection of data would proceed by data being decoded. A multiple regression (Pearson’s) would be used in order to arrive at prediction.

Source

Breakwell, G.M., Hammond, S., & Fife-Schaw, C. (2007). Research methods in psychology. Sage, USA

Predictive research design.