. Research design
Three studies were undertaken to address these three research questions. A pragmatic
(Powell, 2001) and mixed methods (Pansiri, 2005) research approach is adopted to guide this
research design. Given this, these studies occur within positivistic and interpretivistic
epistemologies as needed, and apply a sequence of quantitative and qualitative methods.
1.7.1. Study one
Study one measures, tests, explores, and describes the relationships between ten of the thirteen
key elements shown in the proposed conceptual framework for marine research tourism (Figure 1.1).
For reasons given in Chapter Three, the niche alternative, and nature tourism elements of that model
were not selected for this study. The primary data for study one was obtained through the analysis of
a representative sample of 126 marine research tourism product web sites; and a more detailed
analysis of a subset of 85 product web sites. The distribution of those products was worldwide so as
to best represent the nature of marine research tourism. This sample includes 30 products from
Australia. Examples of these marine research tourism products are shown in Table 1-2.