Theoretical vs conceptual framework: what each is and how to build one

What is a theoretical framework in research?

It is a theory you did not invent. Someone proposed it, others tested it, and it now has a name, an original paper and defined constructs. You apply it to your own problem.

Grant and Osanloo (2014), writing for doctoral students in the Administrative Issues Journal, call it the “blueprint” for the whole dissertation. Their point is practical. The theory should show up in your research questions, in how you organise the literature, in what you measure and in how you read the results. A theory named in Chapter 2 and never seen again is decoration.

Technology adoption studies typically use the Technology Acceptance Model (Fred Davis, MIS Quarterly, 1989) or UTAUT. Grant and Osanloo’s own example is a study of school leaders built on Burns’s transformational leadership theory.

Qualitative studies use theory too, but more as a lens than as a source of hypotheses, and Grant and Osanloo note that some qualitative designs keep the framework loose on purpose so the researcher doesn’t force preconceptions onto the findings.

What is a conceptual framework in research?

The conceptual framework is yours, and it belongs to one study.

The definition most often quoted is from Miles and Huberman’s Qualitative Data Analysis (1994, p. 18): a conceptual framework “explains, either graphically or in narrative form, the main things to be studied” (the key factors, concepts or variables) “and the presumed relationships among them”. So it can be a drawing or a piece of writing, and the relationships are presumed. Your study is what checks them.

In most Indian theses in management, commerce, education, psychology and the health sciences, it is one figure of boxes and arrows near the end of the literature review, followed by the hypotheses it implies. It takes a few constructs from a theory, adds one or two variables your review justifies, and leaves out anything you won’t measure. A theory can have ten constructs and your framework five. That’s fine if you explain why.

What is the difference between a theoretical and a conceptual framework?

The theoretical framework is borrowed and general. The conceptual framework is built by you and specific to your study.

Why your supervisor may use the words differently

This is where scholars get stuck, usually after reading three websites that disagree. Grant and Osanloo insist the two terms are “neither interchangeable nor synonymous”, but admit they “can be vague and lead to confusion for students and dissertation committee members alike”. Yamauchi and colleagues (2017, School Community Journal) describe conceptual frameworks as models of relationships that “may or may not imply a particular theoretical perspective”. Some supervisors call the figure a “research model” or “proposed model”; some qualitative researchers use “conceptual framework” for the whole argument of a study; some DC members want one section titled “Theoretical/Conceptual Framework”.

Don’t argue terminology in your RAC meeting. Ask your supervisor which heading the department expects, open two or three recent theses from your department on Shodhganga, and follow them. Examiners care whether the theory is named and understood, and whether every variable has a reason to be there.

How do you build a theoretical and conceptual framework?

Theory first, then your conceptual framework from it. Both need a finished literature review, so if you are still collecting papers, start with our guide to writing a literature review.

1. 1

   Start from your objectives

   Every box in the framework should connect to at least one research question or objective.

2. 2

   Shortlist two or three theories

   Note which theories the studies closest to yours have used, and read the original paper of each.

3. 3

   Choose one and say why

   Pick the theory whose constructs best match your problem. Write a paragraph on why you rejected the others; examiners ask.

4. 4

   Keep, drop, add

   Keep the constructs you will study, drop the rest with a reason, and add one or two variables your review justifies.

5. 5

   Draw it and check it

   Number each arrow. Then check that every box has a measure in your questionnaire, dataset or interview guide.

Worked example: teachers and a learning management system

This study is made up. Say your topic is teachers’ use of the university’s learning management system in affiliated arts and science colleges, and one objective (see research objectives and questions) is to identify what drives their intention to use it and their actual use.

Your review gives two candidates. TAM (Davis, 1989) explains use through perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. UTAUT, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, was proposed by Viswanath Venkatesh, Michael Morris, Gordon Davis and Fred Davis in MIS Quarterly in 2003 after comparing eight earlier acceptance models. It has four core constructs (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions) and four moderators (gender, age, experience, voluntariness of use).

You pick UTAUT. In a college, the principal and colleagues plainly affect whether teachers log in, and campus Wi-Fi and training vary a lot between colleges; TAM has no separate place for either. (Venkatesh, Thong and Xu’s UTAUT2 of 2012 was built for consumers, so you mention it and set it aside.)

Then you adapt it. Suppose the Indian studies in your review keep pointing to workload, with teachers on heavy timetables resisting anything that adds steps. You add “perceived workload” as one extension, citing those studies. The university has made the system compulsory, so voluntariness doesn’t vary in your sample; you drop that moderator and say why.

How do you draw a conceptual framework?

Word or PowerPoint shapes are enough. The conventions:

• Independent variables on the left, the dependent variable on the right, any mediator between them.
• One single-headed arrow per relationship you will test, labelled with its hypothesis number.
• Moderators in a box below, with an arrow to the middle of the path they affect. (If the difference between a mediator and a moderator is unclear, see mediation and moderation analysis.)
• Variables you added marked with a dashed border, so the examiner sees what came from the theory.
• A figure number, title and source line, such as “Adapted from Venkatesh et al. (2003)”.

For the example, the figure reads left to right. On the left, five boxes: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, perceived workload (dashed) and facilitating conditions. In the middle, behavioural intention. On the right, use behaviour. The first four boxes point to intention, intention points to use, and facilitating conditions has its own arrow straight to use, as in the original UTAUT. Age, gender and experience sit in a box underneath. As a path list:

Each row becomes a hypothesis in words, for example “H2: Effort expectancy has a positive effect on teachers’ behavioural intention to use the learning management system.” How to phrase these is covered in how to write a research hypothesis. When you test the model, the figure becomes your structural model in SEM software; see AMOS vs SmartPLS for choosing a tool.

A qualitative study needs no arrows or hypotheses. A concept map or a page of narrative, marked as provisional, is normal.

Mistakes that DC members pick up

• Arrows everywhere. If you can’t name the study behind an arrow, remove it.
• The original authors’ figure pasted in unchanged and uncredited.
• Twelve boxes and 150 respondents. More paths need more data, so check with whoever advises you on analysis before the questionnaire goes out.
• Boxes with no matching items in the questionnaire.

Where does the framework go in the thesis and synopsis?

University ordinances rarely say, so department custom and your supervisor decide. The usual pattern in Indian theses:

• Synopsis: a short subsection naming the theory with its original citation, the framework figure, and the hypotheses or questions that follow. Half a page to a page.
• Chapter 1: a paragraph naming the theory and pointing forward. Most departments don’t want the full framework here.
• Chapter 2 (review of literature): the usual home. Theory early in the chapter; conceptual framework and hypotheses at the end, once the review has justified each arrow.
• A separate chapter: some management and social science theses have a chapter called “Theoretical framework and hypotheses development”. Follow it if your department does.

The framework comes back briefly in the methodology chapter, where each construct is mapped to its scale, and in the discussion, where you say which paths held and what that means for the theory.

In a synopsis, make sure the figure, objectives and hypotheses agree; committees notice five objectives and a three-variable figure. The rest of that document is in our synopsis format guide, and the same section for admission or fellowship proposals is in the research proposal guide. For the chapter plan as a whole, see PhD thesis structure; for sample layouts of the review chapter, see literature review examples and format.