Descriptive research

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, "why" 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. Descriptive studies, primarily concerned with finding out "what is," might be applied to investigate the following questions: Do teachers hold favorable attitudes toward using computers in schools? What kinds of activities that involve technology occur in sixth-grade classrooms and how frequently do they occur? What have been the reactions of school administrators to technological innovations in teaching the social sciences? How have high school computing courses changed over the last 10 years? How do the new multimediated textbooks compare to the print-based textbooks? How are decisions being made about using Channel One in schools, and for those schools that choose to use it, how is Channel One being implemented? What is the best way to provide access to computer equipment in schools? How should instructional designers improve software design to make the software more appealing to students? To what degree are special-education teachers well versed concerning assistive technology? Is there a relationship between experience with multimedia computers and problem-solving skills? How successful is a certain satellite-delivered Spanish course in terms of motivational value and academic achievement? Do teachers actually implement technology in the way they perceive? Some of the common data collection methods applied to questions within the realm of descriptive research includes surveys, interviews, observations, and portfolios.

Action or Immediate Research

"Action research...aims to contribute both to the practical concerns of people in an immediate problematic situation and to further the goals of social science simultaneously. Thus, there is a dual commitment in action research to study a system and concurrently to collaborate with members of the system in changing it in what is together regarded as a desirable direction. Accomplishing this twin goal requires the active collaboration of researcher and client, and thus it stresses the importance of co-learning as a primary aspect of the research process.

Causal/ Explanatory Research

A cause is an explanation for some characteristic, attitude, or behaviour of groups, individuals, or other entities (such as families, organizations, or cities) or for events. Most social scientists seek causal explanations that reflect tests of the types of hypotheses with which you are familiar .The independent variable is the presumed cause, and the dependent variable is the potential effect. Explanatory research attempts to go above and beyond what exploratory and descriptive research to identify the actual reasons a phenomenon occurs. Context In the social world, it is virtually impossible to claim that one and only one independent Variable is responsible for causing or affecting a dependent variable. Stated another way, no cause can be separated from the larger context in which it occurs. A cause is really only one of a set of interrelated factors required for the effect. When relationships among variables differ across geographic units like counties or across other social settings, researchers say there is a contextual effect .Identification of the context in which a causal relationship occurs can help us to understand that relationship. Specifying the context for a causal effect helps us to understand that effect, but it is a process that can never really be complete. . Our confidence in causal conclusions will be stronger when we know these factors are taken into account. In summary, before researchers can infer a causal relationship between two variables, three criteria are essential: empirical association, appropriate time order, and no spuriousness. After these three conditions have been met, two other criteria are also important: Causal mechanism and context. 1. Association between the hypothesized independent and dependent variables. As you have seen, experiments can provide unambiguous evidence of association by randomly assigning subjects to experimental and comparison groups. 2. Time order of effects of one variable on the others. Unquestionably, the independent variable (treatment of condition) preceded the post-test measures the experiments described so far. 3. Nonspurious relationships between variables. . Random assignment controls a host of possible extraneous influences that can create misleading, spurious relationships in both experimental and non experimental data. Mechanism that creates the causal effect. The features of true experiment do not, in themselves, allow identification of causal mechanisms; as a result there can be some ambiguity about how the independent variable influenced the dependent variable and the causal conclusions.

4. Context in which change occurs. Control over conditions is more feasible in many experimental designs than it is in non-experimental designs, but it is often difficult to control conditions in field experiments.

Exploratory research
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, 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 asGoogle 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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------Basic (aka fundamental or pure) research is driven by a scientist's curiosity or interest in a scientific question. The main motivation is to expand man's knowledge, not to create or invent something. There is no obvious commercial value to the discoveries that result from basic research. For example, basic science investigations probe for answers to questions such as: How did the universe begin? What are protons, neutrons, and electrons composed of?

Most scientists believe that a basic, fundamental understanding of all branches of science is needed in order for progress to take place. In other words, basic research lays down the foundation for the applied science that follows. Applied research is designed to solve practical problems of the modern world, rather than to acquire knowledge for knowledge's sake. One might say that the goal of the applied scientist is to improve the human condition. For example, applied researchers may investigate ways to: improve agricultural crop production treat or cure a specific disease improve the energy efficiency of homes, offices, or modes of transportation