The purpose of research can be grouped into the following three broad types
- Exploration: It studies are mainly undertaken when the researcher has little or no knowledge about the situation under investigation, or when he is unaware of the specific aspects of a general problem. Such studies enable the researcher to formulate problems for more in-depth investigations, develop hypotheses, gain familiarity with potentially significant factors to be dealt subsequently in greater detail with more structural investigations, and so on.
- Description: Descriptive studies, on the other hand, are those that describe situations and events and are undertaken when much is known about the problem under investigation. A researcher may be interested in describing the different characteristics of a population or of a segment of it. A national census is a good example of a descriptive research in which an attempt is made to describe accurately a wide variety of characteristics such as income, education, sex composition, and so on of a national population. A cursory review of the social science literature reveals how replete it is with descriptive studies of all types of social events.
- Explanation: the third general types of studies are explanatory studies undertaken to explain events. Thus, if the research is reporting that families having greater number of child deaths also have greater number of children ever born than families with fewer or no child deaths, he is providing a description. But if he is reporting why families with more child deaths, he is providing a description. But if he is reporting why families with more child deaths have greater number of children ever born, he is performing an explanatory activity.