Research+Designs

=Research Designs=

Another research design is //exploratory// research, which is chiefly characterized by its flexibility. Exploratory research formulates problems precisely, clarifies concepts, gathers explanations, gains insight, eliminates impractical ideas, and forms hypotheses. A few different ways to do exploratory research are lit searches, open surveys, focus groups, and case studies. You can also come up with hypotheses from exploratory research, but you do not test them; that is a job for descriptive and experimental research. [] Maddie Baltz

With research designs, the choice of the most appropriate design depends largely on the objectives of the research. The research has three objectives. These are to gain background information and to develop hypotheses, to measure the state of a variable of interest, or to test hypotheses that specify the relationships between two or more variables. The choice of research design is dependent on how much we already know about the problem and research objective. Burns. //Basic Marketing Research//. Second Edition.Ch.4 p.103 Maggie Buchmiller

The three types of research design are experimental, descriptive, and causal. The objective of experimental research is the discovery of insight and ideas. The objective of descriptive research is to describe market characteristics or functions. Finally, the causal research's objective is to determine cause and effect relationships. http://spirit.lib.uconn.edu/~punj/m3505.pdf Angela Nelson

When conducting a causal research project there are three variables that have to be taken into account. These variables are Independent, dependent and extraneous. The Independent variable is the variable that is changed by the research team, while the dependent variable is what the research team will measure. The third variable is the extraneous variable and that is the variable that the research team will control for. Nick Rudolph http://www.lordsutch.com/pol251/shively-6.pdf

When conducting descriptive research there are two basic types of studies to choose from. They are longitudinal studies and cross-sectional studies. Longitudinal studies measure data from the same group of individuals over a period of time. Cross-sectional studies measure data from a group of individuals at one point in time. A specific type of cross-sectional study is cohort analysis. Cohort analysis tracks individuals who experience the same event within the same time interval over time. Cohort analysis can be an excellent determinant of the demand for your product over time. http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/research/ Adam Pink

When conducting experimental research (which is a form of causal research), there are two general areas of validity: internal and external. To control internal validity, researchers will use a laboratory experiment. To control external validity, marketing researchers use a field experiment model. To test a product in the market, researchers find a test market in which they can control and see how people react to a change in a setting. Using a test market is very beneficial to researchers because it allows for representation of market, degree of isolation, and the ability to control distribution and promotion. http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Mar-No/Marketing-Research.html Sarah Buse

In best terms descriptive research is the “who”, “what”, “when”, “where”, “why”, and “how” aspects of your research. Descriptive research is more rigid than exploratory research and seeks to describe users of a product, determine the proportion of the population that use the product, or predict future demand for the product. As opposed to exploratory research, descriptive research should define questions, peopled surveyed, and the method of analysis prior to the collection of the data. Good descriptive preparation allows for an opportunity to make changes before the costly data collection starts. [] Brent Arnold

Depending on what information you are looking for will determine the correct research design you should use. For quantitative research, experimental and casual would be a better fit. For qualitative data, descriptive research might be the best. after determining what type of data you need there are a number of methods that can be used. They include focus groups, interviews, surveys, data mining, observational, and many more. http://www2.smumn.edu/deptpages/tclibrary/tutorials/finding/qualitative.php JoEllen Keyser

The four broad research design types are qualitative marketing research, quantitative marketing research, observational techniques and experimental techniques. Qualitative marketing research is generally used for exploratory purposes, involves a small number of respondents and is not generalizable to the whole population. Quantitative marketing research is generally used to draw conclusions, test a specific hypothesis and uses random sampling techniques to infer from the sample to the population. Observational techniques is when the researcher observes social phenomena in their natural setting. Observations can occur cross-sectionally while using this approach. Experimental techniques is when the researcher creates an artificial environment to try to control false factors, then manipulates at least one of the variables. An example of this includes test markets. [] Gabe Ismert

Another one of my favorite forms of Experimental and exploratory research is just plain Observational research. Often times, when someone is aware they are taking part in a study, participants may change their behavior and do something out of their character. With Observation Research, this behavior is eliminated and results are clear and uninfluenced. These studies can be as simple as seeing what candy bar a person will choose to as complex as seeing reactions to an obscene billboard. By observing behavior, a researcher can be certain there is little error in their results. http://www.asiamarketresearch.com/glossary/observational-research.htm

Observational research will always be my preferred method of research. Justin Esparza

One type of research design is Case and Field research. This type is also called ethnographic research. Ethnographic research uses direct observation to give a complete snapshot of a case that is being studied. This is useful when very little is known about a phenomenon.

[] Brady Jones Sampling is the process that is used to select the group that will be researched, surveyed, or interviewed through either descriptive, exploratory, or causal techniques. This group must be selected with care, becasue they will represent the whole population. There are many different sampling strategies. Some of which are maximum variation sampling, stratified purposeful sampling, and snowball sampling. The qualitative research sampling is much smaller than the samples for quantitative. R.J. Nill []