Types of Research

A. Based on Purpose

Basic Research

This type of research follows no personal or commercial purposes. It seeks to expand knowledge and theories in general and particular, without the immediate scientific application of research results.

Applied Research

The purpose here is to achieve the understanding or knowledge needed to determine how a specific need is met. For instance, investigating the reasons for the lack of teamwork among the staff of an organization and providing solutions.

Developmental Research

Identifying the need or talent for the emergence of ideas, or creation, design, production, and introduction of a new product or process. The main purpose is not to theorize or investigate a theory.

Evaluation Research

A process for collecting and analyzing information in order to make a decision. For example, to see if the new system is better than the previous one.

B. Based on the method

Survey Method

Description: (Survey of employees’ attitudes about the impact of the MIS system whose information is collected through questionnaires, interviews or observations)

Explanation: Why do some voters prefer one candidate?

Discovery: Investigating the sources and consequences of extremism in the students of a university

Correlational research method

This method evaluates several variables that are thought to be associated with a major complex variable. (The relationship between the attention that the manager pays to the employees and their increased satisfaction or the relationship between the economic position of employees and their children’s educational achievement)

Note that this method never states a cause-and-effect relationship, but rather a relationship. (The relationship between anxiety and accuracy).

Causal Research (Experimental)

  • If we want to improve the program we need to know the relationship between the two variables.
  • In experimental research, the experimenter manipulates the desired variables and then observes their effects on the dependent variable changes.

(Airline crashes: investigate the cause of the plane crash)

(Failure in management has led to the bankruptcy of the company)

Content analysis method

This method is used in:

  • Social and Humanities research
  • Research that requires careful study of sources and documents

Its subtypes are:

  1. Descriptive content analysis (quantitative description of the content. e.g., the number of “must”s used by the manager and determination of her management style).
  2. Inferential content analysis (investigating the effect of people’s social slogans on the circulars issued by the government).
  3. Communication content analysis (reviewing the content of written messages between deputies and managers).

Continuing research

The goal of the researcher is to understand the changes over time. (e.g., studying the physical development of children over the years)

Historical method

Studying, understanding, and describing past events which must be based on a hypothesis, since otherwise, it becomes a meaningless search (e.g., study of the structural developments of an organization’s management system).

Case study

This method aims to study a specific situation. It provides a comprehensive picture of a particular case, and the researcher analyzes all that is relevant to that particular case. (Reviewing the educational planning system of the organization and presenting improvement strategies) (what there is now and what it should be like).

Finally, you might ask which method is best for research?

It depends on how the problem is defined and the hypotheses are formulated.

Related Posts:

Characteristics of a Good Researcher (Part 4)

Characteristics of a Good Researcher (Part 2)

Types of studies

Observational studies

Classifications of clinical trials

Interventional studies

Short / Rapid / Brief Communication Articles

What is a review article?

 

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