As its name suggests, exploratory research is conducted to explore or learn more about a new research area. Exploratory research can be helpful when you don’t know much about the topic you’re studying or want to develop hypotheses.
Exploratory research can use secondary sources (results that have already been analyzed or interpreted, like a literature review) or primary sources (data that come directly from the subject). It may involve qualitative or quantitative methods.
Exploratory research is common in areas like marketing but may also be applied in fields like politics or social sciences.
TipWhen using primary sources for exploratory research, save time with QuillBot’s AI Summarizer. Quickly and easily distill the main points of articles, which can help you determine which ones are worth exploring more deeply.
Cc in email stands for “carbon copy” (or alternatively, “courtesy copy”). It is a way to include someone in an email while indicating that this person does not necessarily need to respond.
There are three ways to include someone in an email: the “to,” “cc,” and “bcc” fields. Their similarities and differences are summarized in the table below.
Bcc, or “blind carbon copy,” is a way to send an email to someone without other recipients seeing. The bcc’d recipient(s) will be able to see anyone in the “to” and “cc” fields, but only the sender can see who has been bcc’d. Anyone bcc’d on an email will not be included in “reply all” messages.
There are different ways to send someone an email, which are summarized in the following table.
Thematic analysis is a research method used to analyze qualitative (nonnumeric) data. The purpose of thematic analysis is to identify common patterns or ideas (themes) in a dataset.
Thematic analysis is a flexible approach to qualitative analysis that can be used across many fields, including healthcare, psychology, education, and consumer research.
Thematic analysis research question examplesThematic analysis could be used to answer the following research questions.
How do university students cope with stress during final exams?
What are young adults’ experiences when buying their first home?
What are commuters’ opinions about public transit in their city of residence?
How do teachers and students perceive the role of technology in education?
Descriptive research involves studying an individual, population, or other phenomenon as it appears in nature. In other words, the researcher describes the subject of interest without attempting to change or manipulate it.
Descriptive research is commonly used in fields like marketing, health studies, psychology, and other sciences.
Descriptive research examplesThe following research questions could be addressed through descriptive research.
What study strategies do students use when studying for their exams?
What are the demographic characteristics of shoppers at X company?
How many people in New York City own versus rent their homes?
How has the average age of homebuyers changed in the past 20 years?
In longitudinal studies, researchers repeatedly collect data from participants over an extended period of time. They can be contrasted with cross-sectional research, where data are collected at a single point in time.
Because they track changes over time, longitudinal studies are helpful for identifying risk factors associated with an outcome of interest—for example, which lifestyle factors may be related to developing a medical condition.
Longitudinal research methods are used in many fields, including medicine, public health, psychology, consumer research, environmental science, and economics.
Longitudinal study exampleThe Seattle Longitudinal Study (SLS) is an example of a longitudinal study in the field of psychology.
The study began in 1956 and collected data from participants roughly every 7 years. It explores how cognitive measures such as memory, reasoning, and vocabulary change as people age. Over 6,000 adults have participated in this study to date.
A cross-sectional study is an observational research design in which data is collected from multiple participants at a single point in time. It is the opposite of a longitudinal study, where data are collected from participants repeatedly over a period of time.
Cross-sectional studies are commonly used across a wide variety of fields, including psychology, economics, and medicine. They are particularly useful for determining the prevalence of a specific outcome or condition in a population.
Cross-sectional study exampleA census is an example of a cross-sectional study. Citizens of a country (the population) answer a survey with demographic questions such as age, sex, and marital status (the outcomes of interest).
Because data are collected at a single point in time, a census is an example of a cross-sectional design.
A Likert scale (pronounced “Lick-urt”) is a research instrument used to collect data on people’s beliefs, experiences, or opinions.
A Likert scale consists of a series of statements or questions (called items) about a topic. The respondent rates their level of agreement with each item using a 5- or 7-point scale, with response options ranging from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree.”
Likert scales are commonly used in areas ranging from clinical psychology to market research.
When writing a Likert scale, it is very important that your items be phrased as clearly as possible. Use QuillBot’s free Grammar Checker to write with precision.
5-point Likert scale example
Please rate your agreement with the following statements.
Questionnaires are tools used to collect information from people about their beliefs, experiences, and other characteristics. Questionnaires are used for many purposes, including consumer research, election polling, clinical diagnosis, and academic research.
TipQuillBot’s translator can help you translate your questionnaire into over 50 languages.
Research methods are the procedures followed to collect and analyze data. You can think of them as the series of steps you would provide someone who wanted to recreate your study.
NoteThe terms research methods and research methodology are often used interchangeably. However, they are not quite the same thing.
Research methods refer to the specific processes taken when conducting research—they’re a series of instructions on how to collect and analyze your data.
Research methodology, on the other hand, is broader in scope. It concerns the research methods used but focuses on the theory and reasoning behind why these methods were chosen to address a research question.
In brief, research methods are what you’re doing, and research methodology is why you’ve chosen these methods.
Academic journal articles will generally include a Methods section; more involved documents, like a dissertation, may instead have a Methodology chapter. You can use QuillBot’s free Grammar Checker to make sure either type of section is perfectly polished.
