Steps of Exploratory Research

We have already noted the exploratory research should be considered the initial step in a
continuous research processes rather than a detached exercise. The following methods may
be is helpful for exploratory research:-

 Survey of Literature

An exploratory is concerned with an area of subject matter in which hypothesis have not got
been formulated. The researcher’s task then is to review the available material with an eye on
the possibilities of developing a hypothesis from it. In some areas if the subject matter, the
hypothesis may have been stated by previous research works. The researcher has to gather
these various hypothesis with a view to evaluate their usefulness for further research and to
consider whether they suggest new hypothesis.

The Experience of Survey

Many people in the course of their day-to-day experience, by virtue of their peculiar
placement as officials, social workers, professional etc., are in a position to observe the
effects of different policy –actions and to relate these to problems of human welfare.

Following are the ways of Experience Survey

Best Hypothesis

By the help of experience survey best hypothesis can be made.

Behavioural Possibility

It introduces the different study of behavioural possibility.

Knowledge of Facilities

By the help of knowledge of facilities source of important knowledge can be found.

Control Factor

By the help of related factors controlled and un-controlled knowledge can be found.
Knowledge of Helping Persons

By the help of this we found that type of knowledge which is related to the agencies, business
worker and another person which is helpful of study.

 Case Study

In a case study, the insight-stimulating cases should be selected for special study. For
particular problems, certain cases may be found more appropriate than others. The
observations of strangers or foreigners may be very valuable, with reference to a certain
community or culture. In case study, the researcher himself has to be very alert.

Under the case study method, the subject matter studied in all its dimensions & ramifications.
The researcher may take into account in this method, the transitional case, pathological cases,
complicated may take into account in this method, the transitional case, pathological cases,
complication and simple cases and description by foreigners and marginal individuals. The
aim of the case study is to know precisely the factors and causes which plain the complete
behavioral patterns of unit and the place of the unit in its surrounding social miller. It gives
enough information about a person or a group or a unit the case study technique, generally,
studies the subject-matter qualitatively and covers all aspects of a single entity. 1 However, it
we can say that, exploratory research leads to insights and formulation of hypothesis, but the
hypothesis is not tested in such studied/research for testing hypothesis, we revise more
carefully controlled studies/research. 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”.2

DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH

It is also known as statistical research, this describes phenomena as they exist. It is used to
identify and obtain information on characteristic of a particular issue like community, group
or people. In other words, we can say that this type of research describes social events, social

1
Michael Crotty, (1998), The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research
Process, New Delhi: SAGE Publications, p. 5
2
Sellitz op.cit., p.72, Also see, Singh Tejinde Jeet and SahuShantanu Kumar, (2015), Research Methodology,
Agra: SBPD Publication, p. 9
structure, social situations, etc. The observer observes and describe what did he find?
Descriptive research answers the questions, what, who, where, how and when. It is used to
study the current situation. It is widely used in the physical and natural science. But it is used
more common in the social sciences, as in socio- economic survey and job and activity
analysis.3

Descriptive research aim at portraying accurately the characteristics of a particular group or

situation, one may undertake a descriptive study about the works in a factory, their age
distribution, their community-wise, distribution, their educational level, their state of their
physical health and so on also one may study the conditions of work in a factory health,
safety and welfare. One may undertake todescribe the organization of industrial establishment
or if a trade union congress. A descriptive study may be concerned with the attitude or views
(of a person) towards anything e.g., attitudes presidential form of government, right to strike,
capital punishment, prohibition, college autonomy etc.

\Steps of Descriptive Research

A descriptive research involves the following steps:

The Clear discrimination of objective of Research

First step is to select the main purpose of research it is necessary because for proper study of
research. Without main aim and purpose research cannot go properly.

Determination of the Method of Data Collection

For any research method, data collection is necessary which type of research the researcher
want, he must have to select the method like questionnaire observation, interview etc. of their
research.

Selection of Sampling

The place which is selected by the researcher, there must be many people so it is difficult to
make contact with all persons this the researcher select some people these selected people are
known as sampling selection of sampling have some essential terms.

3
Khanzode V.V., (1995), Research Methodology: Technique &Trends, New Delhi: APH Publishing Corporation,
p. 35
Real Collection of Data

For real collection of data, the researcher must have to in his real research field, and it is
collected in a selected step at the time of data collection reality is necessary for investigation.

Analysis of Achieved conclusion

After the collection of data the researcher makes the conclusion of the whole research or
investigation for conclusion coding, tabulating and graph representation is used.4

Limitation of Descriptive Research

The Research is essentially creative and demand the discovery of the facts in order to lead to
a solution of the problem. Another limitation lies in going to the other extreme, and generally
is associated weather the statistical technique dominates. This limitation arises because
statistics, which is partly a descriptive tool of analysis can aid, but not always explain causal
relation. Thus, the major goal of a descriptive research is to describe events, phenomena and
situation. Since the description is made on the basis of scientific observation, it is expected to
be more accurate and precise than casual. Descriptive research cannot be used to create a
causal relationship, where one variable affects another; in other words, description research
can be said to have a low requirement for internal validity.26

In short, descriptive research concern with the whole thing that can be studied and counted.
But there are always limitations to that other research must have an impact on the lives of the
people around us. If a investigator is studying a community which is familiar and his research
area is to represent accurately and in detail the character of a particular institution, group or
an event in the community, the suitable research design is called Descriptive research design.

EXPLANATORY RESEARCH DESIGN

When the purpose of the study is to explore a new universe, one that has not been studied
earlier, the research design is called explanatory. The research is mainly concerned with
causes or “why” factor about some phenomenon. It does not involve comparison and factors
of change.28

4
Borwankar P.V., (1995), Research Methodology, New Delhi: SethPublisher, p. 46
For instance, research on „violence against bloomed‟ conducted by this author described not
only varieties of violence like criminal assault, lettering, kidnapping, murder, dourly death,
etc. but also explain why men commit violence because of personality traits like dominance,
suspicion, possession, etc. And situational factors like resourcefulness, alcoholism,
maladjustment strains, and stresses, and so on.

The research purpose in this case is to gain familiarity in unknown areas. Often explanatory
research design is used to formulate a problem for specific investigations, or aim at
formulating research Design thus, often when the universe of study is an unidentified
community, this design forms the first step of research, after which other types of research
designs can be used. The hypothesis in an explanatory research that states the relationship
between two or more variable, i.e., not only it is hypothesized that A is related to B but rather
that A has some particular effect on B. In other words, we can say an explanatory study thus
focuses on determining the „why‟ aspect of correlationship.29 Example; we can say that the
study of voting behavior of people in parliamentary elections, held in March 1998 and
September 1999 respectively, were explanatory student because these explained how people
so voted because of, programmers and policies of political parties, language or alignments,
caste, political ideology, committed image and honest of the candidate, etc. The important
variable between two periods was Kargil was because of which there was a swing in votes in
famous of NDA, led by BJP this research was conducted into two situations at the times, but
it was focused on causal factors of more votes in favour of the BJP due to Kargil war,
Decision of congress into two groups after Sharad Pawar‟s forming a separate political party,
and alignment of the BJP with more regional party.30 Thus, explanatory studies have not
confused with empiricism, with fact gathering, i.e., unrelated to sociological theory.
Explanatory research also, many kinds of designs could be appropriate, e.g. two-cell, four-
cell design, marching design. The explanatory study always carries with it a set of concept
that guide the researcher to look for the facts.31

EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH DESIGN

The Research design that is used to test a Research Design of causal relationship under
controlled situation is called experimental design. We should remember that an experiment is
an observation under controlled conditions or in other words, we can say that it is a design in
which some of the variables being studied are manipulated or which seek to control the
condition within which persons are observed. Controlling of conditions means that the
phenomenon or the condition should not be allowed to change while the experimentation is
going on. In experimentation, various types of evidence have to be, controlled so that the
alternative hypothesis can be tested, and causal relationship may be found out. In short, here
“control” means holding once factor constant while others are free to vary in the experiment.
Independent variable are manipulated and its effect upon dependent variable is measured,
while other variables which may confound such a relationship are controlled.32

Types of Experimental Research

1. After-only experimental design

2. Before – after experimental design.

3. Ex-post facto design

4. Panel study

In the first type of experimental design, the experimental group and the control group are
similar the uncontrolled extreme factors may affect both the group causal. The experimental
group is exposed to the assumed causal variable (X) but the control group is not exposed.
After the experimentation is over, both groups are compared, and it may be noticed that some
effect (Y) is produced in the experimental group, but not in the control group the groups are
assumed to be exactly similar. This may not be true. Secondly, it is possible that Y is
produced not by X, but by some other external factors, or by the joint interaction of X &
other external factions.33

In the second type, the dependent variable, i.e. effect is measured both a before and after the
exposure of group, groups to experiment. This experiment may use one group or several
groups.There may be one control group or more than one control group. The greatest
weakness of this design is that during experiment, a group may be influenced by the external
factor in a different way than the other group, for there is nothing to ensure uniform change.
However, this design is more reliable than after-only design.34

In the third type of experimental research design, researcher depend on historical background
because sometimes it is not possible to divide the population into two clear and similar
groups this may be the case where the entire society consisting of different varieties of people
and conditions are involved. It may be necessary to study the entire historical background of
a country in the export facto design past is studied through the present.35

And the last type of experimental research design is panel study. It is a method of study of a
particular subject over time by using different kinds of data. In this, the researcher may
secure direct evidence of time relationship among variables. It involves repeated observations
on the same subject at different period of time. In after sense it is a time-series study. In the
panel technique, the variation in the result may be attributed to a real change in phenomena. It
is continuous, through deep & reliable, it has also many limitations, e.g., loss of panel
members, non-representativeness, rigid attitude of the members and so on.36

Thus, we find that the experimental research are affected by several limitations Human
Society reveals inequalities in many choose and find out homogeneous groups for
experiments. The purpose of experimental research is to test the hypothesis of a causal
relationship between variables. For an experimental study/research, two groups are required,
and compared in terms of the assured effect of the experimental variable the validity of an
experiment depends on the equivalence between control group & the experimental group
chosen.

Conclusion

From the above defined notes we can say that design means “drawing an outline” or
arranging or planning details. It is the method of building decisions before a situation arises
in which the decision has to be carried out.37

Research design is the preparation of a strategy of conducting research these are the
important points to be considered in formulating any research. All these steps are to be put on
paper to avoid ambiguity at a later stage. The work in research design, thus starts after the
selection of problem and ends before collection of data. The gap between two should be
bridged carefully with a well planned research design.

Thus, it can be said that a research design should contain detailed information about Research
topic, Objectives, Concepts and their operational definition, Variables, Hypothesis, Method
of data collection & method of the data process, Analysis and interpretation, Time dimension
of study and approximate expenditure involve.