To improve faculty development practice (design, implementation, and evaluation), research on faculty development should be guided by a conceptual framework that illuminates key aspects of the enterprise. The conceptual framework proposed in this chapter is based on the premise that faculty members participate in multiple communities of practice, faculty development being one of them. Using this framework, researchers can explore research questions using a variety of paradigms and associated methodologies. This chapter describes the positivist, post-positivist, interpretivist, and critical theory paradigms, as well as pragmatic approaches. For each paradigm, we offer sample research questions, methodologies, and relevant prior research to guide future inquiry. Drawing on these examples, researchers can expand and enrich faculty development scholarship.