Types Of Research

Pure research/Fundamental research

Fundamental, or basic, research is designed to help researchers better understand certain phenomena in the world; it looks at how things work. This research attempts to broaden your understanding and expand scientific theories and explanations. For example, fundamental research could include a company’s study of how different product placements affect product sales. .research carried out to increase understanding offundamental principles.the end results have no direct or immediatecommercial benefits: basic research can be thoughtof as arising out of curiosity. However, in the longterm it is the basis for many commercial productsand applied research.

Applied research

Applied research is designed to identify solutions to specific problems or find answers to specific questions. The research is meant to offer knowledge that is applicable and implementable. For instance, applied research may include a study on ways to increase student involvement in the classroom. This research focuses on a defined problem and is solution-based. research that is applied, accessing and usingsome part of the research communities’ (theacademy’s) accumulated theories, knowledge, methods, and techniques, for a specific, oftenstate, commercial, or client driven purpose.

Descriptive research

Descriptive research definition: Descriptive research is defined as a research method that describes the characteristics of the population or phenomenon studied. This descriptive methodology focuses more on the “what” of the research subject than the “why” of the research subject.

The descriptive research method primarily focuses on describing the nature of a demographic segment, without focusing on “why” a particular phenomenon occurs. In other words, it “describes” the subject of the research, without covering “why” it happens. Attempt to describe systematically a situation, problem, phenomenon, service or program, or provide information about, say, the living conditions of a community, or describes attitude towards an issues

For example, an apparel brand that wants to understand the fashion purchasing trends among New York buyers will conduct a demographic survey of this region, gather population data and then conduct descriptive research on this demographic segment.

Correlational research

Correlational research is a type of non-experimental research method in which a researcher measures two variables, understands and assesses the statistical relationship between them with no influence from any extraneous variable.

Our minds can do some brilliant things. For example, it can memorize the jingle of a pizza truck. The louder the jingle, the closer the pizza truck is to us. Who taught us that? Nobody! We relied on our understanding and came to a conclusion. We don’t stop there, do we? If there are multiple pizza trucks in the area and each one has a different jingle, we would memorize it all and relate the jingle to its pizza truck. This is what correlational research precisely is, establishing a relationship between two variables, “jingle” and “distance of the truck” in this particular example. The correlational study is looking for variables that seem to interact with each other. When you see one variable changing, you have a fair idea of how the other variable will change. eg: The correlation coefficient shows the correlation between two variables

Explanatory research

The primary purpose of explanatory research is to explain why phenomena occur and to predict future occurrences. Explanatory studies are characterized by research hypotheses that specify the nature and direction of the relationships between or among variables being studied. Probability sampling is normally a requirement in explanatory research because the goal is often to generalize the results to the population from which the sample is selected. The data are quantitative and almost always require the use of a statistical test to establish the validity of the relationships. For example, explanatory survey research may investigate the factors that contribute to customer satisfaction and determine the relative weight of each factor, or seek to model the variables that lead to shopping cart abandonment. An exploratory survey posted to a social networking website may uncover the fact that an organization’s customers are unhappy. A descriptive study consisting of an e-mail survey sent to a random selection of customers who made a purchase in the past year might report the type and degree of dissatisfaction. The explanatory research would attempt to understand how different factors are contributing to customer dissatisfaction.

Exploratory research

The goal of exploratory research is to formulate problems, clarify concepts, and form hypotheses. Exploration can begin with a literature search, a focus group discussion, or case studies. If a survey is conducted for exploratory purposes, no attempt is made to examine a random sample of a population; rather, researchers conducting exploratory research usually look for individuals who are knowledgeable about a topic or process. Exploratory research typically seeks to create hypotheses rather than test them. Data from exploratory studies tends to be qualitative. Examples include brainstorming sessions, interviews with experts, and posting a short survey to a social networking website

Mixed research

Mixed research includes both qualitative and quantitative data. Consider the car manufacturer comparing sedan sales. The company could also ask car buyers to complete a survey after buying a red or white sedan that asks how much the color impacted their decision and other opinion-based questions.

Qualitative research

Qualitative research involves nonnumerical data, such as opinions and literature. Examples of qualitative data may include:

• Focus groups
• Surveys
• Participant comments
• Observations
• Interviews

Businesses often use qualitative research to determine consumer opinions and reactions. For instance, a marketing organization may present a new commercial to a focus group before airing it publicly to receive feedback. The company collects nonnumerical data — the opinions of the focus group participants — to make decisions. Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data (e.g., text, video, or audio) to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences. It can be used to gather in-depth insights into a problem or generate new ideas for research.

Quantitative research

Quantitative research depends on numerical data, such as statistics and measurements. For example, a car manufacturer may compare the number of sales of red sedans compared to white sedans. The research uses objective data — the sales figures for red and white sedans — to draw conclusions. Quantitative methodology is the dominant research framework in the social sciences. It refers to a set of strategies, techniques and assumptions used to study psychological, social and economic processes through the exploration of numeric patterns. Quantitative research gathers a range of numeric data. Some of the numeric data is intrinsically quantitative (e.g. personal income), while in other cases the numeric structure is imposed (e.g. ‘On a scale from 1 to 10, how depressed did you feel last week?’). The collection of quantitative information allows researchers to conduct simple to extremely sophisticated statistical analyses that aggregate the data (e.g. averages, percentages), show relationships among the data (e.g. ‘Students with lower grade point averages tend to score lower on a depression scale’) or compare across aggregated data (e.g. the USA has a higher gross domestic product than Spain). Quantitative research includes methodologies such as questionnaires, structured observations or experiments and stands in contrast to qualitative research. Qualitative research involves the collection and analysis of narratives and/or open-ended observations through methodologies such as interviews, focus groups or ethnographies.