What Is Research?
Research is the base or fundamental element of any matter of study. There needs to be a strategic and systematic research procedure to draw conclusions that are factual and evidence based.
The word research is derived from the middle French word recherche which means to go about seeking. Research is a careful and detailed study into a specific problem, concern or an underlying issue using the scientific methods.
Research is a systematic investigation to search for new facts in any branch of study. It plays an integral role to find solution to certain issues and arrive at conclusions. Stakeholders of companies often conduct some good research of potential companies before making any solid investment. This further helps them to understand the internal and external environment in regards to those businesses.
Some Popular Definitions:
According to The Organisation for Economic Cooperation And Development (OECD), "Any creative systematic activity undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of a man, culture and society, and the use of this knowledge to device new applications.”
According to John W. Creswell, who states that "research is a process of steps used to collect an analyse information to increase our understanding of a topic or issue". It primarily consists of three steps, pose the question, collect the relevan data to answer the question and present an answer to the question.
William C. Emory defines "research is any organised inquiry designed and carried out to provide information for solving a problem".
Robert Ross defines "Research is essentially and investigation, a recording and analysis of evidence for the purpose of gaining knowledge".
Types of Research
Basic Research
Basic research is also known as fundamental research. As the name itself suggests that it is a research approach that is entirely based on theory and aims to improving or expanding the knowledge base of a particular field of study. The main motivation of basic research is to expand man’s knowledge, not to create or innovate something. There is no obvious commercial value to the discoveries that result from basic research. In other words, it does not have any direct commercial objective, basic research is conducted primarily for the purpose of expanding knowledge base on any issue concerned. For example, research project on the study of impact of mobile phones on human brain.
Applied Research
Applied research is basically designed to solve the real practical problems of the modern world, rather than acquire knowledge for some knowledge sake. In simple terms, the primary purpose of applied research is to know more about a certain real world problem and take correct steps to solve it. It potentially has a direct commercial objective. The researchers who belong to this field try to find immediate solutions to existing problems facing an industry or business organization. For example, investigating the factors that affect the workers productivity, studying or analyzing the sales performance with the standard estimates.
Descriptive Research
Descriptive research is a type of research that provides an in-depth description of a situation. Descriptive research is also an appropriate option when researcher does not have any information about the research problem and primary information gathering is required to established a hypothesis. The descriptive research provides the answer to the what part of the research and does not answer the why part. Researcher has no control over the variables and researcher has to report the actual conditions prevalent.
For example, a clothing business wants to understand the fashion purchasing trend among its customers.
Here, the researchers will try to conduct a demographic survey of this area and further gather population data and conduct a descriptive research on the demographic segment. This particular research activity will then uncover details on what is the purchasing pattern among these customers. But at the same time will not cover any investigative information about why these patterns exist. Because for the clothing business trying to break into the markets, the ultimate objective is understanding the nature of the market.
Conceptual Research
This research is a type of research that is generally related to abstract idea (existing in thought or as an idea but not having any physical or concrete existence). It does not involve any practical experimentation. This research is generally used by philosophers and thinkers to develop new concepts or reinvent the existing once.
Empirical Research
Empirical research has reliance on the observation and experience with hardly any regular for theory and system. Empirical research is data based data, data driven which often comes up with conclusions that can be verified through continuous experiments and observation.
For example, A research is being conducted to find out if listening to happy music while working may promote productivity?
Analytical Research
Analytical research is a critical, systematic and strategic evaluation based on information that is available. The researcher should make use of facts or information already available and analyse these to make a critical evaluation of the material. It is primarily concerned with testing hypothesis.
It specifies and interprets relationships by analysing the facts for existing information. The analytical research provides the answer the why part of the reason and research activity. It usually concerns itself with the cause-effect relationships. For example, analytical research provides accurate answers to the questions like why a certain company does its dealings in a certain way over a particular period of time.
