Can a study have both a theoretical and a conceptual framework?

Yes, and many dissertations do. The theoretical framework presents the established theory or theories. The conceptual framework then shows how you have adapted them to your context, which additional factors from the literature you have added, and how the pieces relate in your particular study. In that arrangement the theory is one component of the broader conceptual framework.

Is a theoretical framework the same as a literature review?

No. The literature review surveys what has been studied and found. The theoretical framework selects a theory and explains how it will guide your study. The framework usually grows out of the review, because reading the literature is how you learn which theories researchers in your area use, and it is often placed at the end of the review chapter or in its own short chapter.

Does qualitative research need a theoretical framework?

It depends on the methodology. Some qualitative designs use theory from the start as a lens for collecting and interpreting data. Grounded theory traditionally delays engagement with existing theory because its purpose is to generate theory from data. Even then, researchers are expected to state the concepts and assumptions they bring, which is a conceptual framework. Varpio and colleagues describe three uses that researchers frequently rely on within subjectivist inductive research: "fully inductive theory development, fully theory-informed inductive, and theory-informing inductive data analysis".

How do I choose a theory for my theoretical framework?

Look at which theories the key studies in your literature review use, list two or three candidates, and compare them on fit: does the theory explain the outcome you care about, do its concepts correspond to things you can observe or measure, and has it been used with similar populations? Then justify your choice and say briefly why you did not use the alternatives.

A diagram is not mandatory, but it is the quickest test of whether your framework is clear. If you cannot draw the concepts as boxes and the expected relationships as arrows, the framework is probably still a list of topics. Always accompany the figure with text explaining each element and each arrow.

Theoretical vs. Conceptual Framework: The Difference, With One Study Shown Both Ways

Students hear "you need a framework" from supervisors, committee members and methods textbooks, often without being told which kind or what it should contain. The two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, and different disciplines attach different meanings to them. Varpio and colleagues (2020) wrote their paper on the subject because, as their abstract puts it, "all too often, these words are used interchangeably or without a clear understanding of the differences between these concepts."

The distinction is not difficult once you see both frameworks built for the same study, which is what this guide does.

Definitions

Theory. A set of related concepts and propositions that explains or predicts something, developed and tested over time by a research community, and usually known by a name: self-determination theory, the theory of planned behaviour, social capital theory.

Theoretical framework. Your reasoned use of one or more existing theories to structure your study. Varpio et al. define it as "a logically developed and connected set of concepts and premises—developed from one or more theories—that a researcher creates to scaffold a study". Their article is behind a paywall, so we took that wording from Song et al. (2022) in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education, who quote the sentence in full and attribute it to Varpio et al. The PLOS ONE study protocol by Pokharel et al. (2026) quotes the same definition and attribution, but with the middle of the sentence elided. Both are listed below. Grant and Osanloo (2014) use the image of a blueprint for a house; their abstract describes "using a metaphor of the 'blueprint' of a house" to explain how a theoretical framework structures a dissertation. In practice it answers three questions: which theory, why this one, and how do its concepts correspond to what I will measure or look for?

Conceptual framework. Your own model of what is going on in your study. The definition most often quoted comes from Miles and Huberman, carried into the fourth edition with Saldaña: 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". Ravitch and Riggan's book Reason & Rigor (2017) takes a broader view, in which the conceptual framework guides the whole research process and not only the choice of variables. Either way, the researcher constructs it. It is not taken ready-made from a textbook.

Side-by-side comparison

	Theoretical framework	Conceptual framework
Source	One or more established, named theories	Your synthesis of literature, theory, and sometimes practice experience
Who developed it	Other scholars. You select and apply	You. It is specific to this study
Scope	General: the theory applies across many settings	Specific: the concepts and relationships in your setting
Typical form	Prose explaining the theory and mapping its constructs to your variables	A diagram of concepts and arrows, with prose explaining each link
Most common in	Deductive, hypothesis-testing, quantitative designs	Exploratory, qualitative, mixed-methods and applied studies. Also quantitative studies with no single fitting theory
What it does	Supplies hypotheses and an explanation for expected results	Defines what will be studied, and what will be left out, and shows expected relationships
Risk	Forcing data to fit the theory	An unsupported wish list of variables
Where it goes	End of the literature review, or a separate chapter or section	After the review and theory sections, leading into the research questions and methods

Usage does vary between programmes and disciplines. Read two or three recent theses from your own department before you decide how to label yours.

One study, both frameworks

The study below is hypothetical. The theories and the papers cited for them are real. The "findings from the literature" in the conceptual framework section are placeholders that show where your own cited evidence would go, and they are not claims about the actual research on electronic health records.

The study: Why do some nurses in a regional hospital make full use of a new electronic health record (EHR) system while others use only the minimum?

The theoretical framework

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM; Davis, 1989) has been applied repeatedly to clinicians' use of health information technology. Holden and Karsh (2010) reviewed more than 20 such studies and concluded that TAM predicts a substantial portion of health IT use or acceptance, but may benefit from additions and modifications. TAM proposes that a person's intention to use a system is driven mainly by two beliefs: perceived usefulness (the system will improve my job performance) and perceived ease of use (using it will be free of effort). Perceived ease of use also influences perceived usefulness, and intention predicts actual use.

A theoretical framework section would:

Present TAM, its origin and its core propositions.
Justify it: it has been applied in clinical settings (Holden & Karsh, 2010), and Davis (1989) developed and validated six-item scales for both of its core constructs.
Acknowledge alternatives: UTAUT (Venkatesh et al., 2003) is a unified model built from eight earlier models, including TAM, with four core determinants of intention and use. Say why you did or did not choose it.
Map constructs to the study:

TAM construct	In this study	Measured by
Perceived usefulness	Nurses' belief that the EHR improves patient care and saves documentation time	Six-item scale adapted from Davis (1989)
Perceived ease of use	Nurses' belief that the EHR is easy to learn and operate	Six-item scale adapted from Davis (1989)
Behavioural intention	Intention to use optional EHR functions in the next month	Intention items adapted from a published TAM study, cited
Actual use	Use of optional functions	System log data

State the hypotheses the theory generates: perceived usefulness positively predicts intention, perceived ease of use positively predicts perceived usefulness, and so on.

The conceptual framework

Suppose the literature review also turns up factors TAM does not cover. Holden and Karsh make the general point that the theory may need additions in health care. In this imagined review, the additions are staffing levels and time pressure, the quality of training, the presence of a "super-user" on the ward, and ward culture, in particular the charge nurse's attitude. In a real thesis each of these would be backed by the studies you found.

A conceptual framework brings these together with the TAM constructs into a model specific to this hospital:

In the thesis this would be drawn as a box-and-arrow figure, with the context factors on the left, the TAM beliefs in the middle and behaviour on the right. The links in that figure are:

From	To	Expected relationship	Basis
Training quality	Perceived ease of use	Positive	Empirical studies from your review (cite them)
Super-user on ward	Perceived ease of use	Positive	Empirical studies from your review (cite them)
Charge nurse attitude (ward culture)	Perceived usefulness	Positive	Qualitative studies from your review (cite them)
Perceived ease of use	Perceived usefulness	Positive	TAM
Perceived ease of use	Intention	Positive	TAM
Perceived usefulness	Intention	Positive	TAM
Intention	Depth of EHR use	Positive	TAM
Workload and staffing ratio	The link between intention and use	Moderator: expected to weaken it	Empirical studies from your review (cite them)

The accompanying text explains each arrow and cites the studies that support it. A sentence in that text has this shape: "Workload is expected to moderate the relationship between intention and use, following [the studies that found this]." Arrows without a citation or a stated rationale should be removed or flagged as exploratory.

In this example, the theoretical framework is one component of the conceptual framework. The theory provides the middle of the figure. The literature and the local context provide the rest.

The same topic as a qualitative study

If the study were instead an interview study asking how nurses experience the transition to the EHR, the researcher would not test TAM. They might use a theory as an interpretive lens. Normalization Process Theory (May & Finch, 2009), for example, focuses on the work of embedding and sustaining a practice, and on why some practices become normalized while others do not. Or they might work inductively and present only a conceptual framework: the sensitizing concepts they bring (workload, professional identity, surveillance) and how these shaped the interview guide. Varpio et al. name three such uses: "fully inductive theory development, fully theory-informed inductive, and theory-informing inductive data analysis". What matters is saying which one you are doing.

How to build yours

From the literature review to a theoretical framework

While reading, record which theory each key study uses. A column in your synthesis matrix is a convenient place.
Shortlist two or three theories that recur or that fit your outcome.
Read the original statement of each theory, not only textbook summaries, and at least one critique.
Choose, and write the justification: fit with the research question, with the population, and with your methods.
Map every construct to something in your study. If a construct has no counterpart, explain why it is left out.
Derive hypotheses or, for qualitative work, the sensitizing questions the theory raises.

From the literature review to a conceptual framework

List the concepts your research question contains, then add factors that the literature repeatedly links to your outcome.
Define each concept in one or two sentences, with sources. Conflicting definitions in the literature are worth a paragraph.
Draw it. Put the outcome on the right, the factors on the left and the mechanisms between them. Draw an arrow only where you can cite evidence or give a reasoned argument.
Mark what is in scope. A framework that includes everything guides nothing. The factors you will not study can be mentioned in the text as delimitations.
Connect it forward. Each research question, hypothesis, survey section or interview topic should correspond to an element of the diagram.
Revisit it after analysis. In qualitative work especially, a revised framework is often a contribution of the study.

Common mistakes

Name-dropping a theory. A paragraph describing Bandura, followed by a study that never mentions self-efficacy again, is not a framework. The theory should reappear in the hypotheses, the instruments, the analysis and the discussion.
Using a theory only because a similar study did. Check that its constructs fit your outcome and population.
Summarizing textbook accounts. Cite and read the original source of the theory.
A diagram with unexplained arrows. Each link needs support in the text.
Too many theories. Three loosely connected theories usually signal that the question is not yet focused. If you combine theories, explain how they complement each other and where they conflict.
Treating the conceptual framework as a literature summary. It is an argument about relationships and a statement of scope.
Forgetting it in the discussion chapter. Say whether the findings supported, extended or challenged the framework.

When you read for a framework, you are looking across many papers for the same two things: which theory each one uses, and which factors it links to the outcome. On the Wonders organize board you can group saved papers and notes by theory or by factor, so the recurring theories and relationships are visible when you start to draw the model.

References

Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319–340. https://doi.org/10.2307/249008
Grant, C., & Osanloo, A. (2014). Understanding, selecting, and integrating a theoretical framework in dissertation research: creating the blueprint for your “house”. Administrative Issues Journal: Connecting Education, Practice, and Research, 4(2), 12–26. https://doi.org/10.5929/2014.4.2.9 — the DOI currently resolves to a 404 on the journal's new host; the record, page range and abstract are in ERIC as EJ1058505, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1058505
Holden, R. J., & Karsh, B.-T. (2010). The Technology Acceptance Model: its past and its future in health care. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 43(1), 159–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbi.2009.07.002
May, C., & Finch, T. (2009). Implementing, embedding, and integrating practices: an outline of Normalization Process Theory. Sociology, 43(3), 535–554. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038509103208
Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaña, J. (2020). Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook (4th ed.). SAGE.
Pokharel, B. B., Hsu, M., Hedden, L., Nimmon, L., Bloom, D. E., & Tsuei, S. H. (2026). Understanding primary care physicians' perceptions of large language model adoption in clinical practice: a qualitative research protocol leveraging the technology adoption behavior framework. PLOS ONE, 21(8), e0355491. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0355491 (quotes the Varpio et al. definition of a theoretical framework)
Ravitch, S. M., & Riggan, M. (2017). Reason & Rigor: How Conceptual Frameworks Guide Research (2nd ed.). SAGE.
Song, S. L., Yu, Z. Z., Pavlech, L., Scott, I. U., & Greenberg, P. B. (2022). Theoretical frameworks in medical education: using a systematic review of ophthalmology education research to create a theory of change model. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 14(5), 568–582. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-22-00115.1 (quotes the Varpio et al. definition of a theoretical framework)
University of Southern California Libraries. Organizing your social sciences research paper: theoretical framework. https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/theoreticalframework
Varpio, L., Paradis, E., Uijtdehaage, S., & Young, M. (2020). The distinctions between theory, theoretical framework, and conceptual framework. Academic Medicine, 95(7), 989–994. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000003075
Venkatesh, V., Morris, M. G., Davis, G. B., & Davis, F. D. (2003). User acceptance of information technology: toward a unified view. MIS Quarterly, 27(3), 425–478. https://doi.org/10.2307/30036540