3_Types_of_Research
3. Types of Research
Formal research studies take several different approaches and designs depending on the subject matter, data, and problem. These classifications are defined by opposing spectrums:
Basic vs. Applied Research
Classified by their ultimate purpose or expected outcomes.
- Basic Research (Fundamental/Pure):
- Objective: Taken up purely for the enhancement of knowledge and development of theoretical framework. It has no immediate, practical application.
- Subcategories:
- Pure Basic Research: Looking for scientific knowledge without a specific intended application.
- Strategic Basic Research: Exploratory studies directed into broad fields in the hope of someday uncovering useful discoveries or problem resolutions.
- Applied Research:
- Objective: Concerned directly with the application of theory to directly solve various real-world problems. Includes a specific practical end-goal in sight.
- Subcategories:
- Evaluation Research: Systematically gathering data to make decisions about variables of interest (e.g., field-testing herbicides to choose the best one).
- Developmental Research (R&D): Extending the findings of applied research to actually develop finished products, operational programs, or training materials.
Descriptive vs. Analytical Research
Classified by how they interact with phenomena.
- Descriptive (Exploratory) Research: Attempts to determine, describe, or identify the current state of affairs exactly as it exists. Uses observations and surveys. Variables are observed naturally but never manipulated (e.g., public opinion census, taxonomic studies naming organisms). Useful for fact gathering to create potential hypotheses.
- Analytical Research: Analyzes data to establish why the state of affairs came to be like that. Establishes associations and looks for possible cause-and-effect implications using already available data.
Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research
Classified by the nature of the data collected.
- Quantitative Research: Relies heavily on numerical data and intense statistical analyses to quantify relationships between sets of independent and dependent variables. It is objective, confirmatory, and deductive.
- Qualitative Research: Information is gathered in subjective, narrative/verbal forms to understand complex realities, phenomena, cultures, or historical processes. Relies on non-numerical coding. It is inductive and highly subjective.
- (Note: Many researchers utilize a Mixed-Method that uses both statistical tracking and qualitative interviews).
Conceptual vs. Empirical Research
- Conceptual Research: Favored heavily in philosophy or social science theory. Breaks an abstract idea or concept into its core components to reinterpret understanding. Doesn't heavily rely on physical physical experiments.
- Empirical Research: The researcher gathers "hard facts" through intense observation and physical experiments capable of proving or disproving a working hypothesis. Highly verifiable.
Experimental vs. Non-experimental Research
- Experimental Research: The independent variable is directly introduced, manipulated, or monitored by the investigator in a controlled setting to observe cause-and-effect.
- Non-experimental Research: The researcher does not manipulate the variables, either because ethical restrictions exist on human experimentation or because the cause has already happened naturally in the real world. Assumed causes are simply traced backward or forward.
Prospective vs. Retrospective Research (Time Framing)
- Prospective (Longitudinal) Studies: The investigation starts in the present and looks forward. The researcher selects a group of subjects (a cohort) and watches them over several years into the future to see expected outcomes (e.g., following smokers over 20 years to trace cancer rates).
- Retrospective (Ex Post Facto) Studies: Events or effects have already occurred. The study works in reverse, looking back into the past to identify what originally caused the established effect. Often used in observing epidemiology or disaster analysis.