What is the purpose of research exploratory descriptive and explanatory )?

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The main difference between explanatory and exploratory research is that explanatory research explains why certain phenomena work in the way that they do, whereas exploratory research explores and investigates a problem that is not clearly defined.

Conducting research studies can be intense! Surveys, analytics, data verification, and monitoring. One of the most rewarding parts of research is when you get to showcase your survey results to your stakeholders.

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It can be hard to tell the exact purpose of business research. It will always be based on the situation and the person conducting such study. Generally speaking, a business research’s purpose is to ensure future success. Whenever a person or a group enters the market, their aim is to earn considerable profits. Well, almost all businesses want to earn money, right? Unless yours is a non-profit organization, the primary purpose of researching the market is to generate more sales and income.

When you conduct a business research, you will be gathering relevant information that you can use to make your business better. For instance, in a marketing search, you will be identifying your target market and the needs. You have to offer something that the market needs or you will not be able sell anything! Never enter into a business unless you have everything planned out. Running a business can get complicated especially if you lack knowledge. If you conduct a thorough business research, you can learn the basics and put it to good use.

EXPLORATORY RESEARCH

Exploratory research, as the name implies, intends merely to explore the research questions and does not intend to offer final and conclusive solutions to existing problems. This type of research is usually conducted to study a problem that has not been clearly defined yet.

Conducted in order to determine the nature of the problem, exploratory research is not intended to provide conclusive evidence, but helps us to have a better understanding of the problem. When conducting exploratory research, the researcher ought to be willing to change his/her direction as a result of revelation of new data and new insights.

Exploratory research design does not aim to provide the final and conclusive answers to the research questions, but merely explores the research topic with varying levels of depth. It has been noted that “exploratory research is the initial research, which forms the basis of more conclusive research. It can even help in determining the research design, sampling methodology and data collection method”. Exploratory research “tends to tackle new problems on which little or no previous research has been done”. Unstructured interviews are the most popular primary data collection method with exploratory studies.

Examples of Exploratory Research Design

• A study into the role of social networking sites as an effective marketing communication channel
• An investigation into the ways of improvement of quality of customer services within hospitality sector in London
• An assessment of the role of corporate social responsibility on consumer behaviour in pharmaceutical industry in the USA

DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH

Descriptive research focuses on throwing more light on current issues through a process of data collection. Descriptive studies are used to describe the behavior of a sample population. In descriptive research, only one variable (anything that has quantity or quality that varies) is required to conduct a study. The three main purposes of descriptive research are describing, explaining and validating the findings. For example, a research conducted to know if top-level management leaders in the 21st century posses the moral right to receive a huge sum of money from the company profit.

EXPLANATORY RESEARCH

Explanatory research or causal research is conducted to understand the impact of certain changes in existing standard procedures. Conducting experiments is the most popular form of casual research. For example, research conducted to understand the effect of rebranding on customer loyalty.

As you can see, there is much to think about and many decisions to be made as you begin to define your research question and your research project. Something else you will need to consider in the early stages is whether your research will be exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory. Each of these types of research has a different aim or purpose, consequently, how you design your research project will be determined in part by this decision. In the following paragraphs we will look at these three types of research.

Exploratory research

Researchers conducting exploratory research are typically at the early stages of examining their topics. These sorts of projects are usually conducted when a researcher wants to test the feasibility of conducting a more extensive study; he or she wants to figure out the lay of the land with respect to the particular topic. Perhaps very little prior research has been conducted on this subject. If this is the case, a researcher may wish to do some exploratory work to learn what method to use in collecting data, how best to approach research participants, or even what sorts of questions are reasonable to ask. A researcher wanting to simply satisfy his or her own curiosity about a topic could also conduct exploratory research. Conducting exploratory research on a topic is often a necessary first step, both to satisfy researcher curiosity about the subject and to better understand the phenomenon and the research participants in order to design a larger, subsequent study. See Table 2.1 for examples.

Descriptive research

Sometimes the goal of research is to describe or define a particular phenomenon. In this case, descriptive research would be an appropriate strategy. A descriptive may, for example, aim to describe a pattern. For example, researchers often collect information to describe something for the benefit of the general public. Market researchers rely on descriptive research to tell them what consumers think of their products. In fact, descriptive research has many useful applications, and you probably rely on findings from descriptive research without even being aware that that is what you are doing. See Table 3.1 for examples.

Explanatory research

The third type of research, explanatory research, seeks to answer “why” questions. In this case, the researcher is trying to identify the causes and effects of whatever phenomenon is being studied. An explanatory study of college students’ addictions to their electronic gadgets, for example, might aim to understand why students become addicted. Does it have anything to do with their family histories? Does it have anything to do with their other extracurricular hobbies and activities? Does it have anything to do with the people with whom they spend their time? An explanatory study could answer these kinds of questions. See Table 3.1 for examples.

What are the 3 purposes of research?

What are the 3 types of research?

What is the purpose of descriptive research?