What is a conceptual framework? How do you prepare one? This article defines the conceptual framework and lists the steps on how to prepare it. A simplified example is added to strengthen the reader’s understanding.
In preparing your research paper as one requirement for your course as an undergraduate or graduate student, you will need to write the conceptual framework of your study. The conceptual framework steers the whole research activity. The conceptual framework serves as a “map” or “rudder” that will guide you towards realizing your study’s objectives or intent.
What, then, is a conceptual framework in empirical research? The next section defines and explains the term.
Table of Contents
Definition of Conceptual Framework
A conceptual framework represents the researcher’s synthesis of the literature on how to explain a phenomenon. It maps out the actions required in the study’s course, given the researcher’s previous knowledge of other researchers’ point of view and his or her observations about the phenomenon studied.
The conceptual framework is the researcher’s understanding of how the particular variables in the study connect. Thus, it identifies the variables required in the research investigation. It is the researcher’s “map” in pursuing the investigation.
As McGaghie et al. (2001) put it: The conceptual framework “sets the stage” to present the particular research question that drives the investigation being reported based on the problem statement. The problem statement of a thesis gives the context and the issues that caused the researcher to conduct the study.
The conceptual framework lies within a much broader framework called a theoretical framework. The latter draws support from time-tested theories that embody many researchers’ findings on why and how a particular phenomenon occurs.
I expounded on this definition, including its purpose, in my recent post titled “What is a Conceptual Framework? Expounded Definition and Five Purposes.”
4 Steps on How to Make the Conceptual Framework
Before you prepare your conceptual framework, you need to do the following things:
Choose your topic
Decide on what will be your research topic. The topic should be within your field of specialization. (Generate your research topic using brainstorming tips).
Do a literature review
Review relevant and updated research on the theme that you decide to work on after scrutiny of the issue at hand. Preferably use peer-reviewed, and well-known scientific journals as these are reliable sources of information.
Isolate the important variables
Identify the specific variables described in the literature and figure out how these are related. Some research abstracts contain the variables, and the salient findings thus may serve the purpose. If these are not available, find the research paper’s summary.
If the variables are not explicit in summary, get back to the methodology or the results and discussion section and quickly identify the study variables and the significant findings. Read the TSPU Technique to skim articles efficiently and get to the essential points with little fuss.
Generate the conceptual framework
Build your conceptual framework using your mix of the variables from the scientific articles you have read. Your problem statement or research objective serves as a reference for constructing it. In effect, your study will attempt to answer the question that other researchers have not explained yet. Your research should address a knowledge gap.
Example of a Conceptual Framework
Research Topic
Statement number 5 introduced in an earlier post titled How to Write a Thesis Statement will serve as the basis of the illustrated conceptual framework in the following examples.
The youth, particularly students who need to devote a lot of time using their mobile phones to access their course modules, laptops, or desktops, are most affected. Also, they spend time interacting with their mobile phones as they communicate with their friends on social media channels like Facebook, Messenger, and the like.
When free from schoolwork, many students spend their time viewing films on Netflix, YouTube, or similar sites. These activities can affect their sleeping patterns and cause health problems in the long run because light-emitting diode (LED) exposure reduces the number of hours spent sleeping.
Thesis Statement
Related to the students’ activity, we can write the thesis statement thus:
Thesis statement: Chronic exposure to blue light from LED screens (of computer monitors, mobile phones, tablets, and television) deplete melatonin levels, thus reducing the number of sleeping hours among the youth, particularly students who need to work on their academic requirements.
Review of Literature
The literature review supports the thesis statement as among those that catch one’s attention is a paper that warns against the use of LED devices at night. Although we can save a lot of electrical energy by using the efficient LED where the inventors Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura received a Nobel prize in physics in 2014, there is growing evidence that it can cause human health problems, particularly cancer.
Haim & Zubidat (2015) of the Israeli Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Chronobiology synthesized the literature about LEDs. They found out that blue light from the light-emitting diodes (LED) inhibits melatonin production, particularly during active secretion at night. Melatonin is a neuro-hormone that regulates sleep and wake cycles. Also, it can slow down aging and prevent cancer (Srinivasan et al., 2011).
Thus, looking directly at your laptop, mobile phone, or television at night not only can severely damage your eyes but also prevent the achievement of sound sleeping patterns. As a countermeasure, sleep experts recommend limiting the use of digital devices until 8 o’clock in the evening.
Those affected experience insomnia (see 10 Creative Ways on How to Get Rid of Insomnia); they sleep less than required (usually less than six hours), and this happens when they spend too much time working on their laptops doing some machine learning stuff, monitoring conversations or posts on social media sites using their mobile phones, or viewing the television at night.
Variables Isolated from the Literature
Using the background information backed by evidence in the literature review, we can now develop the study’s paradigm on the effect of LED exposure to sleep. We will not include all the variables mentioned and select or isolate only those factors that we are interested in.
Figure 1 presents a visual representation, the paradigm, of what we want to correlate in this study. It shows measurable variables that can produce data we can analyze using a statistical test such as either the parametric test Pearson’s Product-Moment Correlation or the nonparametric test Spearman Rho (please refresh if you cannot see the figure).
Notice that the variables of the study are explicit in the paradigm presented in Figure 1. In the illustration, the two variables are:
1) the number of hours devoted in front of the computer, and
2) the number of hours slept through the night until dawn.
The former is the independent variable, while the latter is the dependent variable. Both variables are easy to measure. It is just counting the number of hours spent in front of the computer and the number of hours slept through the night in the study subjects.
Assuming that other things are constant during the study’s performance, it will be possible to relate these two variables and confirm that, indeed, blue light emanated from computer screens can affect one’s sleeping patterns. (Please read the article titled “Do you know that the computer can disturb your sleeping patterns?” to find out more about this phenomenon). A correlation analysis will show if the relationship is significant.
Related Reading:
- How the conceptual framework guides marketing research
Evolution of a Social Theory as Basis of Conceptual Framework Development
Related to the development of the conceptual framework, I wrote a comprehensive article on how a social theory develops by incisively looking at current events that the world is facing now — the COVID-19 pandemic. It shows how society responds to a threat to its very survival.
Specifically, this article focuses on the COVID-19 vaccine, how it develops and gets integrated into the complex fabric of human society. It shows how the development of the vaccine is only part of the story. A major consideration in its development resides in the supporters of the vaccine’s development, the government, and the recipients’ trust, thus the final acceptance of the vaccine.
Social theory serves as the backdrop or theoretical framework of the more focused or variable level conceptual framework. Hence, the paradigm that I develop at the end of that article can serve as a lens to examine how the three players of vaccine development interact more closely at the variable level. It shows the dynamics of power and social structure and how it unfolds in response to a pandemic that affects everyone.
Check out the article titled “Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine: More Than 90% Effective Against the Coronavirus.” This article shall enrich your knowledge of how an abstract concept narrows down into blocks of researchable topics.
References
Haim, A., & Zubidat, A. E. (2015). LED light between Nobel Prize and cancer risk factor. Chronobiology International, 32(5), 725-727.
McGaghie, W. C.; Bordage, G.; and J. A. Shea (2001). Problem Statement, Conceptual Framework, and Research Question. Retrieved on January 5, 2015 from http://goo.gl/qLIUFg
Srinivasan, V., R Pandi-Perumal, S., Brzezinski, A., P Bhatnagar, K., & P Cardinali, D. (2011). Melatonin, immune function and cancer. Recent patents on endocrine, metabolic & immune drug discovery, 5(2), 109-123.
©2015 January 5 P. A. Regoniel
Cite as: Regoniel, P. A. (2015, January 5). Conceptual framework: a step-by-step guide on how to make one. Research-based Articles. https://simplyeducate.me/wordpress_Y/2015/01/05/conceptual-framework-guide/
Please, I need assistance with a theoretical or conceptual framework on the topic:
The expectations and experiences of nursing students on the use of the online medium of education during the Covid-19 pandemic
Dear Captain, your intended study sound like a qualitative one. You can create constructs for the items you would want to study.
Doc please I am working on informal settlements and pollution Behaviour in the Adentan Municipality
My Objectives are
1 To map out and identify informal settlements in the Adentan Municipality
2. Identify sources of pollution in informal settlements
3.evaluate the influence of indiscriminate waste Disposal on the health of informal dwellers and their environment
4. Establish populations behavior towards the environment.
5. Identify Behavior Change Techniques which can reduce indiscriminate waste Disposal in informal settlements
How best can I link my variables I am very confused in building my conceptual Framework.
Dear Eugenia, upon reading your objectives, I can see that you need to harmonize them as some of the objectives appear to be redundant. You need to focus your research on a particular issue. From what I can discern, you would like to know if there is a relationship between the waste disposal behavior of communities and the amount or volume of waste produced. You can make a comparison between informal and formal settler waste disposal behavior in terms of the waste they generate.
Very interesting and educative information. Please guide me with Conceptual Framework of my study on Performance Management System in an organization: Exploratory Case Study
My research topic is ‘identification of difficult concepts in teaching basic science and technology in junior secondary schools’
Pls give me the theoretical/conceptual frame work. Thank you.
Dear Moses, what do you mean by difficult concepts? It’s too broad. What may be difficult to one person may not be difficult to another.
Dear Ruth, perhaps what you intend to do is to find out if the communication tool (whatever it is) affects the work productivity of the employees. You have to be clear with the objectives of your study. Just type “research objectives” in the search box of this website and it will show you the articles related to writing the research objectives.
Good day, I am working in a thesis on the effect of communication and information as a tool for information at the workplace and I am wondering what my conceptual framework should be like.
Incredible indeed! I have learned a l0t while reading this article. It’s crucial and helpful.
This article is very helpful, especially for a young researcher like me. Thanks a lot.
Hello, I am interested in learning more about the conceptual framework and wanted to buy the second edition of your eBook. However, the Paypal link doesn’t seem to work, despite multiple trials. Would you mind looking into this issue? Thanks!
Hello Shijia, it should work now. Just try clicking on it and follow the instructions.
Good day! I would like to seek help because. I am struggling with my conceptual framework of on my quantitative research. my title is Factors of Cigarette Smoking Among Student
Hello Gemma, first things first. Make sure you have written your research objectives. It should be clear in your mind. What do you want to do?
I am doing a lived experience qualitative study, How do I decide on a conceptual framework
Do descriptive studies require a conceptual framework?
Yes. You may develop a conceptual framework for a qualitative study but it all boils down to the study’s objectives. Qualitative studies may not always require a conceptual framework. I discussed this concern in my ebook on conceptual framework.
Dear Atabongwoung,
You can always add a variable that you find relevant in your study. Relevance means that you have a sound basis for adding that variable. It may be something that you yourself observed to influence the dependent variable but found no reference material to cite. You must, however, watch out for spurious variables, meaning, variables that may have an effect but which may be just coincidental.
Dear Patrick,
Good day. A question please, must the variables that are used in the conceptual framework appear on the literature review? Or can one use other variables of a concept that are not mentioned in the literature review or in the research proposal?
Dear Cindy, good day, too. I am glad that you find this article very informative. I’m happy that my writing has served you well just like the others. Keep safe…
Good day! Thank you so much for this very informative post about the conceptual framework. I was able to understand it now. It’s very organized and well-explained.
Hi … I have finished designing the conceptual framework for my study. I want to ask what I should do with the variables in the framework. Am I supposed to define the variables or to explain them?. If an explanation is needed, then how should I go about it?
Please do assist, I am greatly in need of some assistance.
Dear Lizy, if it is a thesis, you will need to include the variables in the Definition of Terms section of your study. Define the words in your study using a reference (conceptual definition), or define them as you intend them to mean (operational definition).
Hi, my research topic is Demographics of unemployed residents in barangay indulang what are the variables here?
Dear Twinky, you are the one who should define your variables in your demographics. Demographics is the study of a population so the variables you will consider will be factors like age, educational attainment, sex, years unemployed, etc. The variables you include will depend on the objectives of your study.
Dear Dowell, please read this article to guide you on how to go about your review of literature: https://simplyeducate.me/wordpress_Y//2018/02/16/review-of-literature/
im asking your advice guys, because our research topic is learning challenges in new normal and im having a hard time citing authors ugh help me