Conceptual vs Theoretical Frameworks: What’s the difference? And why do PhD students get stuck?
If you’ve started a PhD, chances are you’ve already heard the terms conceptual framework and theoretical framework more times than you can count. Supervisors mention them. Reviewers ask about them. Methods textbooks assume you already understand them.
And yet, for many PhD students, these two terms remain stubbornly confusing.
They’re often used interchangeably, treated as if they mean the same thing, or introduced without explanation.
The result? Students feel unsure whether they’ve done something wrong, whether they’re missing a section of their thesis, or whether they need to go back and redesign their entire study.
In this post, I want to slow things down and explain what conceptual and theoretical frameworks actually are, what jobs they do in a PhD, and why understanding the difference can make your research feel far more manageable.
Why frameworks feel so confusing in a PhD
One of the main reasons frameworks cause so much stress is that they’re rarely introduced clearly. Many PhD students encounter them in feedback comments or examiner reports, rather than through careful teaching.
Another issue is that frameworks sit at the intersection of ideas, data, and theory. They’re not just definitions you can memorise. They’re ways of thinking about your project. That makes them harder to pin down, especially early in a doctorate when your study is still evolving.
Let’s start by separating the two.
“Frameworks sit at the intersection of ideas, data, and theory. They’re not just definitions you can memorise. ”
What is a conceptual framework?
A conceptual framework is about your specific research project.
At its core, it answers a very simple question:
What are the main ideas in my study, and how do they relate to each other?
These main ideas are your concepts. They’re the key things you’re interested in exploring, understanding, or making sense of.
Depending on your topic, they might include experiences, processes, behaviours, interactions, or social conditions.
A conceptual framework doesn’t just list these ideas. It shows how they connect.
An example
Imagine your research focuses on workplace performance reviews.
Your concepts might include things like:
Preparation
Stress or anxiety
Behaviour during the meeting
Power relationships between employees and managers
Communication and interaction
A conceptual framework brings these together and asks how they interact in the context you’re studying.
For example:
How does an employee’s level of preparation shape their behaviour in the meeting?
How does stress show up in communication patterns?
How do power dynamics affect what employees feel able to say?
The framework helps you organise your thinking and makes explicit what matters in your study and how those elements fit together.
Example - early draft conceptual framework
What a conceptual framework is not
This is important, because a lot of confusion comes from unrealistic expectations.
A conceptual framework is not:
A summary of all the literature you’ve read
A fixed model that can never change
Something that has to look a particular way (for example, a diagram)
Many conceptual frameworks evolve as your PhD progresses. As you collect and analyse data, some concepts become more central, others fade into the background, and relationships between ideas become clearer.
That’s normal.
What is theory, and where does it fit?
Before we get to theoretical frameworks, it helps to clarify what theory actually is.
A theory is simply an idea about how something works. It’s an attempt to explain patterns in behaviour, experience, or social life. Theories don’t appear out of nowhere - they’re developed by researchers over time, based on empirical work and careful thinking.
When you begin your PhD, you’re stepping into an existing conversation. Other researchers have already studied things related to your topic and proposed theories about how those things operate.
What is a theoretical framework?
A theoretical framework is what happens when you draw on one or more of those existing theories to help you interpret your study.
It answers a different question from a conceptual framework:
Which existing explanations am I using to understand what I’m studying?
Using the workplace performance review example again, you might decide that certain theories help make sense of what’s happening in those meetings.
One theory might help explain how people manage impressions and present themselves differently depending on the situation. Another might help explain how safe people feel to speak honestly in hierarchical settings.
By positioning your research within these theories, you’re showing how your work connects to - and builds on - what is already known.
How conceptual and theoretical frameworks work together
This is where many PhD students get stuck, because they assume they must choose one framework or the other.
In reality, they do different jobs.
Your conceptual framework helps you identify what you’re looking at and how the key ideas in your study relate to each other.
Your theoretical framework helps you interpret what you find by drawing on existing explanations.
When you collect data - whether through interviews, observations, surveys, or documents - you start to see how your concepts show up in practice.
You then ask:
Do existing theories help explain what I’m seeing?
Where do they fit well?
Where do they fall short?
Often, some aspects of your data will align neatly with theory, while others won’t. That’s not a failure - it’s often where your contribution lies.
Your final framework and your contribution
By the end of a PhD, many researchers arrive at a framework that brings everything together.
This might:
Refine an existing theory
Extend it into a new context
Combine ideas from multiple theories
Or, in some cases, propose something genuinely new
That framework might be presented as a diagram, a written explanation, or a combination of both. What matters is not the format, but that it clearly shows how the ideas in your study work together and how your research adds to existing knowledge.
In the example below, the boxes in blue are the concepts I’m working with in this example study and how they relate to each other in performance review meetings.
The yellow callouts show where theory is doing explanatory work. I’m not using theory everywhere, but where it helps me make sense of what I’m seeing.
Example - draft combined conceptual and theoretical framework
A final reassurance
If you’re still feeling uncertain about conceptual and theoretical frameworks, that usually means you’re still thinking - and that’s exactly what a doctorate is for.
Frameworks are tools. They’re there to support your thinking, not trip you up.
If you’d like my step-by-step guidance on your PhD journey, section by section, chapter by chapter, check out my PhD Survival Guides.