Classification of Research According to Purpose | Purpose of Research.

Classification of research according to purpose.

 

What are the purposes of research? 

According to the purposes research can be classified into the following ways.

1. Descriptive research:

2. Exploratory research

3. Hypothesis testing

            a. Analytical hypothesis testing

            b.   Predictive hypothesis testing

Purposes of Research

1. Descriptive research:

It is engaged with the describing characteristics of variables in a particular situation based on past data or experience or research. By this research, knowledge about a particular matter can be enhanced. Here the self thinking ideas and opinions of the researcher can be represented. Under this research something new is added to the previous research or finds out new aspects of that problem or matter, that is, it is not related with innovation. For example, you may visit Coxes bazaar sea beach and if you give description about the natural beauty of it in your research then it will be a descriptive research. Another example is how many villages under different Thana are affected by arsenic. Collect this data and represent in a research will be a descriptive research.

2. Exploratory research:

In descriptive research, research is done on those things which are already available. But exploratory means which are not known to us before but has existence. Just if you discover or unearth or unveil that thing then it will be exploratory research. Exploratory research not only include the things about which man cannot think before but also include the things which are already has been described by someone but you are describing it from different angle or different view point. For example budget has been discussed from different view point before   

3. Hypothesis testing:

Here at first a logical and scientific statement or assumption are set up and conduct a research on the basis of that statement or assumption. And compare the result with the assumption whether the assumption is true or false. For example you are going to research about microcredit. At first you should assume that maximum amount of microcredit are used in unproductive sectors. Now if you conduct research on the basis of this assumption to compare result of this research with the assumption then it is a hypothesis based research. If your taken assumption is right you will accept alternative hypothesis or if false you will accept the null hypothesis. When the topic of the research is very hard and we don’t know from which point we will start or if the researcher has very few knowledge about it in this case hypothesis testing bring about result. Notice that the assumption which we are taking here should be reasonable and rational and related to our particular subject. For an instance gold has a tremendous impact directly to the national election of the country is not a reasonable assumption. So we should give up these assumptions when the variables have no direct relation.

Hypothesis testing can be divided into two types-

1. Analytical hypothesis testing
2. Predictive hypothesis testing.

a. Analytical hypothesis testing:  

What, how, why something is happening in a particular situation and finding the influencing factors and extent of influences. For example employment generation, capital mobilization etc. ate related to the growth in GDP. Only referring these factors is not enough. How they influence GDP, in what extent, in which way then it will be analytical hypothesis testing. Generally under the analytical hypothesis testing we try to indentify the independent variables, labeled them by various name and then say which one how much influence and how and why the influence. 

b. Predictive hypothesis testing:  

What, how, why something is happening in several other situations. Here the cause of event are important not the extent of influence. So we don’t try to find out independent variables and their contribution level rather we try to find out the happening of one event how influence the other event in different situation. For example, smoking is the main cause of cancer in our country whether this relation also prevailing in Antarctica region (coldest area), Africa (hottest area), Siberian region (desert area), in America, Europe, Asia etc. or not. It means,

The positive relation between smoking and cancer is alternative hypothesis

No relation between smoke and cancer is null hypothesis, is same all over the world. So the influencing variable i.e. smokes how much influence in different area we don’t find out. But we are trying to find out the same relation whether it is prevailed in different area or not.

Reference :
Uma Sekaran, "Research Methodology For Business- A Skill Building Approach" (Wiley India Publication, Fourth Edition, 2009).