Types of Research Design

By
Nitin Navin
Assistant Professor

1
Types of Scientific Research Design
• Depending on the purpose of research, scientific research projects
can be grouped into three types:
1. Exploratory Research
2. Descriptive
3. Explanatory (Causal)
• These three methods differ in terms of different aspects of
conducting the research.

2
1. Exploratory Research
• Exploratory research is defined as a research used to investigate a
problem which is not clearly defined.
• It is conducted to have a better understanding of the existing
problem, but will not provide conclusive results.
• For such a research, a researcher starts with a general idea and uses
this research as a medium to identify issues, that can be the focus for
future research.
• An important aspect here is that the researcher should be willing to
change his/her direction subject to the revelation of new data or
insight.

3
1. Exploratory Research…
• As the name indicates, exploratory research is mainly used to explore
the insight of the research problem.
• Such a research is usually carried out when the problem is at
preliminary stage.
• It is often referred to as grounded theory approach or interpretive
research as it used to answer questions like what, why and how.
• In most cases the exploration phase will begin with a literature search.

4
Exploratory Research…
• This is used for the following purposes:
1. Expand your understanding of the management question.
2. Look for ways others have addressed and/or solved problems similar
to your management question.
3. Gather background information on your topic to refine the research
question.
4. Identify information that should be gathered to formulate
investigative questions
5. Identify sources for and actual questions that might be used as
measurement questions
6. Identify sources for and actual sample frames that might be used in
sample design.
5
Example of Exploratory research 1
• Consider a scenario where a juice bar owner feels that increasing the
variety of juices will enable increase in customers, however he is not
sure and needs more information.
• The owner intends to carry out an exploratory research to find out
and
• Hence she decides to do an exploratory research to find out if
expanding their juices selection will enable him to get more
customers of if there is a better idea.

6
Example of Exploratory research 2
• The citizens of a country are generally dissatisfied with governmental
policies regarding during an economic recession.
• Here, exploratory research may be directed at measuring the extent
of citizens’ dissatisfaction,
• To understand how such dissatisfaction is manifested, such as the
frequency of public protests, and
• To know the presumed causes of such dissatisfaction, such as
ineffective government policies in dealing with inflation, interest
rates, unemployment, or higher taxes

7
Examples of Exploratory research 3
• Such research may include examination of publicly reported figures,
such as estimates of economic indicators, such as GDP,
unemployment, and consumer price index, as archived by third-party
sources, obtained through
➢ interviews of experts, eminent economists, or key government
officials, and/or
➢derived from studying historical examples of dealing with similar
problems
• This research may not lead to a very accurate understanding of the
target problem, but may be worthwhile in scoping out the nature and
extent of the problem and serve as a useful precursor to more in-
depth research.
8
Example 3:The refined theoretical model to measure the buying
intentions (obtaining inputs from exploratory research)

9
Methods of Conducting Exploratory Research

10
Exploratory Research Methods..
• Secondary Data Analysis: The secondary data are not only used for
problem understanding and exploration but are also used to develop
an understanding about the research findings.
• Expert Survey : To get the authentic information about the problem,
the researchers sometimes consult the experts of the concerned field.
These experts provide authentic and relevant information useful for
the research, which otherwise is difficult to obtain.
• Focused Group Interviews: The focus group interview is a qualitative
research technique in which a trained moderator leads a small group
of participants to an unstructured discussion about the topic of
interest.
11
Exploratory Research Methods..
• Depth interview: A depth interview is a probing between a highly
skilled interviewer and a respondent from the target population to
unfold the underlying opinions, motivations, emotions, or feelings of
an individual respondent on a topic generally coined by the
researcher.
• Case Analysis:
• This method actually combines the record analysis and observations
from individual and group interviews.
• The case studies become particularly useful when one needs to
understand some particular problem or situation in great depth and
when one can identify the cases rich in information.
12
Exploratory Research Methods..
• Projective Techniques :
• In projective techniques, subjects are shown images of ink blots, and
their perceptions are analysed to determine personalities and mental
states
• Check Rorschach Ink Blot Test
• Projective techniques are derived from clinical psychology.
• There are a wide variety of projective techniques available.

13
2. Descriptive Research design
• In such studies, the researcher is interested in describing a situation,
case, or phenomenon.
• As a theory-based design, it is interested in answering the
how, what, when, and where questions, instead of the why
• Descriptive research is directed at making careful observations and
detailed documentation of a phenomenon of interest.
• These observations must be based on the scientific method (must be
replicable, precise, etc.)
• Therefore, more reliable.
• Often much more complex.

14
Example
• The simplest descriptive research study concerns a univariate
question or hypothesis in which we ask about , or state something
about , the size, form, distribution, or existence of a variable.
• Market Research: An investor, for example, may need to look at the
market, such as its current state, its trends, and so on.
• Here, the descriptive research can answer all these questions for the
investor, which is why market research is an investment in itself.

15
2. Descriptive Research design…
• Further classified into:
1. Cross-sectional study
2. Longitudinal study
1..Cross-Sectional Study : This research design involves the collection
of information from a sample of a population at only one point of time.
• In this study, various segments of the population are sampled so that
the relationship among the variables may be investigated by cross
tabulation

16
1..Cross-Sectional Study
• This research design involves the collection of information from a
sample of a population at only one point of time.
• A cross-sectional study is a type of research design in which you
collect data from many different individuals at a single point in time.
• In this study, various segments of the population are sampled so that
the relationship among the variables may be investigated by cross
tabulation
• For example, Researchers who are interested in the current
prevalence of a disease in a certain subset of the population might
use a cross-sectional design to gather and analyze the relevant data

17
1.Cross-Sectional Study …

Different Groups compared at

the same time

Group 1 Group 3

Group 2

18
2. Longitudinal study
• Longitudinal study involves survey of the same population over a
period of time.
• The opposite of a cross-sectional study is a longitudinal study.
• In a longitudinal study, the sample remains the same over a period of
time. In a cross-sectional design, a representative sample taken from
the population is studied at only one point of time.
• So, while cross-sectional studies collect data from many subjects at a
single point in time, longitudinal studies collect data repeatedly from
the same subjects over time, often focusing on a smaller group of
individuals

19
2. Longitudinal study
Same Group compared overt
time

Group 1 Group 1 Group1

Group 2 Group 2 Group2

20
Cross-sectional vs longitudinal example
• You want to study the impact that a low-carb diet has on diabetes.
• For this, you first conduct a cross-sectional study with a sample of
diabetes patients to see if there are differences in health outcomes
like weight or blood sugar in those who follow a low-carb diet.
• You discover that the diet correlates with weight loss in younger
patients, but not older ones.

21
Cross-sectional vs longitudinal example….
• You then decide to design a longitudinal study to further examine this
link in younger patients.

• Without first conducting the cross-sectional study, you would not

have known to focus on younger patients in particular.

22
3. Causal Research (or Experimental Research)
• Causal research is the most sophisticated research market researchers
conduct.
• The objective is to establish causal relationships that is – Cause &
Effect’- between tow or more variables.
• Here researcher studies how a dependent or response variable is
effected by changes in a variety of predictor or independent variables.
• The causality is often expressed as an if/then statement :
If X happens, then Y will occur.
• Causal Research relies on experiments—test markets—where the
researcher can conduct real-world or simulated experiments to
ascertain how consumer attitudes, brand market share, among other
variables respond to changes in marketing mix strategies.
23
3. Causal Research (or Experimental Research)..
• To support a causal relationship, the researcher must find more than
just a correlation, or an association, among two or more variables.
• To support a casual inference- a conclusion that if one or more things
occur will follow, three critical things must happen:
1. Temporal Sequence
• There must be an appropriate time order of the events. That is,
• The ‘cause’ must be happen before the ‘effect’.
• Sometimes there may be a strong correlation between two variables,
but it cannot be said with any certainty that one is the dependent
variable and the other is the independent variable.

24
3. Causal Research (or Experimental Research)..
2. Concomitant Variation:
• Concomitant variation means that when the cause changes, we can
also observe a change in the effect.
• For example: If a brand's advertising expenditures have been cut in
half and the brands sales fell, we may suspect that the reduced
advertising support caused sales to fall.
3. Elimination or Spurious Correlations:
• The term coined by the great statistician , Karl Pearson.
• A spurious correlation is a common misinterpretation of cause and
effect.
• It occurs when the presumed cause of an effect is actually caused by
an unconsidered variable.
25
Three Levels of Causation
When seeking to establish a causal relationship, researchers distinguish
among three levels of causations:
1. Absolute Causality
• Absolute causality means that the cause is necessary and sufficient to
bring about the effect.
• We typically find absolute causation in the physical sciences. Here is
an example of absolute causality. When temperatures fall below 32º
F, unsalted water begins to freeze.
• In social sciences, it is unlikely that absolute causality can be
ascertained.

26
Three Levels of Causation…
• A researcher might find a strong causal relationship between reducing
retail price and increasing retail sales.
• But, if a researcher finds just one incidence of a price reduction that
does not result in increased retail sales, an inference of absolute
causality cannot be supported.
• So while marketing researchers cannot establish absolute causality,
they still seek to prove less strenuous versions of causality that are,
conditional and contributory causality.

27
Three Levels of Causation…
2. Conditional Causality :
• Conditional causality means that a cause is necessary, but not
sufficient to bring about an effect.
• Example :
• It is nearly impossible to establish a conditional causal link between
increased advertising spending and increased retail sales. While there
is probably a strong correlation between advertising spending levels
and retail sales
• However, there are occasions when increased advertising spending
may result in reduced retail sales. And, there are times when sales
increase when a brand lacks advertising support.
• We could not, therefore, demonstrate conditional causality because
advertising is not a necessary condition for retail sales.
28
Three Levels of Causation…
3. Contributory Causality:
• Contributory causality is the weakest form of causality.
• Contributory causality is when the cause is neither necessary nor
sufficient to bring about the effect.
• With contributory causality a change in the cause is associated with a
change in the effect.
• The cause, therefore, is neither necessary nor sufficient, but it does
contribute to the effect

29
Post hoc fallacy
• It’s a Latin expression.
• ‘after this, therefore because of this’
• The fallacy is based on the hasty conclusions that there is a causal
relationship between two variables merely because the presumed
cause precedes the effect.

30