Question 1.

Give examples of specific situations that would call for the following types of
research, explaining why – a) Exploratory research b) Descriptive research c) Diagnostic
research d) Evaluation research.

Answer : Exploratory research is a type of research conducted for a problem that has not been
clearly defined. Exploratory research helps determine the best research design, data collection
method and selection of subjects. It should draw definitive conclusions only with extreme
caution. Given its fundamental nature, exploratory research often concludes that a perceived
problem does not actually exist.

Exploratory research often relies on secondary research such as reviewing available literature
and/or data, or qualitative 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 Internet allows for research
methods that are more interactive in nature. For example, RSS feeds efficiently supply
researchers with up-to-date information; major search engine search results may be sent by email
to researchers by services such as Google Alerts; comprehensive search results are tracked over
lengthy periods of time by services such as Google Trends; and websites may be created to
attract worldwide feedback on any subject.

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".

Exploratory research is not typically generalizable to the population at large.

[edit] Social science

In many social science circles, exploratory research "seeks to find out how people get along in
the setting under question, what meanings they give to their actions, and what issues concern
them. The goal is to learn 'what is going on here?' and to investigate social phenomena without
explicit expectations." (Russell K. Schutt, Investigating the Social World, 5th ed.. This
methodology can is also at times referred to as a grounded theory approach to qualitative
research or interpretive research, and is an attempt to unearth a theory from the data itself rather
than from a predisposed hypothesis.

Earl Babbie identifies three purposes of social science research. The purposes are exploratory,
descriptive and explanatory. Exploratory research is used when problems are in a preliminary
stage [1]. Exploratory research is used when the topic or issue is new and when data is difficult to
collect. Exploratory research is flexible and can address research questions of all types (what,
why, how). Exploratory research is often used to generate formal hypotheses. Shields and Tajalli
link exploratory research with the conceptual framework working hypothesis [2].

[edit] Applied research

Applied research in administration is often exploratory because there is need for flexibility in
approaching the problem. In addition there are often data limitations and a need to make a
decision within a short time period. Qualitative research methods such as case study or field
research are often used in exploratory research.[2] .

There are three types of objectives in a marketing research project.

• Exploratory research or formulative research

• Descriptive research
• Causal research

Exploratory research or formulative research: The objective of exploratory research is to gather

preliminary information that will help define problems and suggest hypotheses.'[3]

Descriptive Research: The objective of descriptive research is to describe things, such as the
market potential for a product or the demographics and attitudes of consumers who buy the
product.' [3]

Causal research: The objective of causal research is to test hypotheses about cause-and-effect
relationships.[3]

Descriptive research
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Descriptive research, also known as statistical research, describes data and characteristics
about the population or phenomenon being studied. Descriptive research answers the questions
who, what, where, when and how...

Although the data description is factual, accurate and systematic, the research cannot describe
what caused a situation. Thus, Descriptive research cannot be used to create a causal
relationship, where one variable affects another. In other words, descriptive research can be said
to have a low requirement for internal validity.

The description is used for frequencies, averages and other statistical calculations. Often the best
approach, prior to writing descriptive research, is to conduct a survey investigation. Qualitative
research often has the aim of description and researchers may follow-up with examinations of
why the observations exist and what the implications of the findings are.

In short descriptive research deals with everything that can be counted and studied. But there
are always restrictions to that. Your research must have an impact to the lives of the people
around you. For example, finding the most frequent disease that affects the children of a town.
The reader of the research will know what to do to prevent that disease thus, more people will
live a healthy life.
[edit] Social Science Research
Earl Babbie identifies exploration, description and explanation as the three purposes of social
science research. Descriptive research classifies phenomena.[1] . Descriptive research generally
precedes explanatory research. For example, over time chemists have described the elements
through the periodic table. The periodic table’s description of the elements allows people to think
about the elements in helpful ways. It allows for explanation and prediction when elements are
combined.

Although the process is not linear in practice, Exploratory research precedes Descriptive research
and Descriptive research generally goes before explanatory research. In addition, the
conceptualizing of Descriptive research (categorization or taxonomy) precedes the hypotheses of
explanatory research [2] . For a discussion of how the underlying conceptualization of Exploratory
research, Descriptive research and explanatory research fit together see Conceptual framework.