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TYPES OF RESEARCH

EXPLORATORY RESEARCH

Exploratory research is often conducted because a problem has not been clearly

defined as yet, or its real scope is as yet unclear. It allows the researcher to familiarize

him/herself with the problem or concept to be studied, and perhaps generate

hypotheses to be tested. Exploratory research helps determine the best research

design, data collection method and selection of subjects, and sometimes it even

concludes that the problem does not exist!

Another common reason for conducting exploratory research is to test concepts before

they are put in the marketplace, always a very costly endeavor. In concept testing,consumers are provided either with a written concept or a prototype for a new, revised

or repositioned product, service or strategy.

Exploratory research can be quite informal, relying on secondary research such as

reviewing available literature and/or data, orqualitative approaches such as informal

discussions with consumers, employees, management or competitors, and more formal

approaches through in-depth interviews, focus groups, projective methods, case studies

or pilot studies.

The results of exploratory research are not usually useful for decision-making by

themselves, but they can provide significant insight into a given situation. Although the

results of qualitative research can give some indication as to the "why", "how" and

"when" something occurs, it cannot tell us "how often" or "how many". In other words,

the results can neither be generalized; they are not representative of the whole

population being studied.

Possible situations of exploratory research:

Would people be interested in our new product idea? Quality of service is declining and we dont know why.

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DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH

Descriptive research is also called Statistical Research. The main goal of this type of

research is to describe the data and characteristics about what is being studied. The

idea behind this type of research is to study frequencies, averages, and other statistical

calculations. Although this research is highly accurate, it does not gather the causes

behind a situation. Descriptive research is mainly done when a researcher wants to gain

a better understanding of a topic for example, a frozen ready meals company learns

that there is a growing demand for fresh ready meals but doesnt know much about the

area of fresh food and so has to carry out research in order to gain a better

understanding. It is quantitative and uses surveys and panels and also the use of

probability sampling. Descriptive research is the exploration of the existing certainphenomena. The details of the facts wont be known. The existing phenomenal facts are

not known to the persons.

Possible situations of descriptive research:

Did last years product recall have an impact on our companys share price?

What have been the trends in organizational downsizing over the past ten

years?

EXPLANATORY RESEARCH

Explanatory studies look for explanations of the nature of certain relationships.

Hypothesis testing provides an understanding of the relationships that exist between

variables. A style of research in which the primary goal is to understand the nature or

mechanisms of the relationship between the independent and dependent variable.

Possible situations of explanatory research

Which of two training programs is more effective for reducing labor turnover? Do buyers prefer our product in a new package?

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QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

Data collection methods can be classified into qualitative and quantitative methods. This

is a conventional classification as a distinction it can be helpful to writers, but it can also

be misleading. A useful way to distinguish between the two methods is to think of

qualitative methods as providing data in the form of words quantitative methods as

generating numerical data. . Quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection are

often employed in support of each other on the one research project. The qualitative

researcher may use historical numerical data to support a particular finding, for

example. Similarly, qualitative data can provide rich information about the social

processes in specific settings.