Pure or Basic or Fundamental Research
- research carried out to increase understanding of fundamental principles
- pure research involves developing and testing theories and hypothesis that are intellectually challenging to the researcher but may or may not have practical application at the present time or in the future.
- thus, such work often involves the testing of hypotheses containing very abstract and specialized concepts.
Applied Research
Applied research “aims at finding a solution for an immediate problem facing a society, or an industrial/business organization, whereas fundamental research is mainly concerned with generalisations and with the formulation of a theory”.
Applied research is considered to be non-systematic inquiry and it is usually launched by a company, agency or an individual in order to address a specific problem.
Descriptive Research
Descriptive research is a type of research that is used to describe the characteristics of a population. It collects data that are used to answer a wide range of what, when, and how questions pertaining to a particular population or group.
Exploratory research
Exploratory research is defined as a research used to investigate a problem which is not clearly defined. It is conducted to have a better understanding of the existing problem, but will not provide conclusive results. For such a research, a researcher starts with a general idea and uses this research as a medium to identify issues, that can be the focus for future research. An important aspect here is that the researcher should be willing to change his/her direction subject to the revelation of new data or insight. Such a research is usually carried out when the problem is at a preliminary stage. It is often referred to as grounded theory approach or interpretive research as it used to answer questions like what, why and how.
Correlational Research
explanatory research
Explanatory research is a method developed to investigate a phenomenon that had not been studied before or had not been well explained previously in a proper way. Its main intention is to provide details about where to find a small amount of information.
With this method, the researcher gets a general idea and uses research as a tool to guide them quicker to the issues that we might address in the future. Its goal is to find the why and what for an object of study.
Quantitative Research
Quantitative Research refers to the systematic investigation in the case in which a person doing the researcher collects the data from the different respondents that are based on numerical figures and data obtained is then analyzed for obtaining the results using different mathematical, statistical and computational tools.
Qualitative research
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.
Mixed methods research
Mixed methods research is a research method that combines and integrates qualitative and quantitative research methods in a single research study. It involves collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data to understand a phenomenon better and answer the research questions.
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