A graduate student at Large State University has begun data collection for a thesis project in which he is asking students about their use of social networking websites. His primary interest is in determining how often students use these sites, in what ways and if there are differences across majors. What type of research design is this student using?

The type of  research design this student is using is: Descriptive research

Explanation:

The characteristics of this type of research, is that it looks for information about a certain tipics, issue, or phenomenon.

The interest of focus of this data collection is to determine the use of the students social networking websites. With this information the study would be a description of the students use of the sites and if there are differences across majors.

The student is using a "DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH DESIGN".

Explanation: Describtive research design is a type of research design, where the researcher is interested in describing a situation and how those situations apply in different cases. The researcher does this by sourcing data, analysing those data, and compiling them, to be able to answer the "How" and "Why" of research question. In this type of research, data can be collected by survey, articles or books, internet, or any other source.

Because the researcher has chosen to use student survey to gather it's data, and analyse the data, It is Describtive research

answer; being clearly political;