There are two main types of research: basic research and applied research. Basic research aims to advance fundamental knowledge and understanding without necessarily having practical applications. Applied research seeks to address specific problems and needs in the short term. Other distinctions include exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory research based on their purposes. Research can also be classified as case studies, cross-sectional, or longitudinal based on their design and approach.

1. Major Types of
Research

2. Types on the Basis of Use and
Audience of Research
• Social Research has two wings or orientations. There is
somewhat detached “academic” orientation and a more
activist, practical, and action-oriented orientation. This is not
a rigid separation. Researchers work in both. We have two
types here.
1. Basic Research
2. Applied Research

3. Basic Research:
• Also called academic or pure research.
• Research designed to advance fundamental knowledge about
how the world works and build/test theoretical explanations
by focusing on the “why” question.
• Its primary audience is the scientific community.

4. Basic Research:
• Much basic research lacks practical application in the short
term but it builds a foundation for knowledge and broad
understanding that has an impact on many issues and policy
areas.
• Its practical impact may only appear after diverse basic
knowledge advances have accumulated over a long time.
• It is also the main source of tools – methods, theories, and
ideas that all researchers use.

5. Basic Research:
• Almost all of the basic breakthroughs and significant advances
in knowledge originated in basic research.
• It lays the foundation for core understandings and may have
understandings and may have implications for issues that do
not even exist when a study is conducted.

6. Applied Research:
• Research done to address a specific concern.
• It is designed to offer practical solutions to a concrete problem
or address the immediate and specific needs of practitioners.
• It is conducted to offer solutions to a question raised by an
employer, a local community, or a social cause.
• Building, testing, or making connection to theory is rarely
done here.

7. Applied Research:
• It offers practical result that we can use in short term.
• Businesses, government offices, health care facilities, social
service agencies, political organizations, and educational
institutions conduct applied studies and make decisions based
on findings.
• Active practitioners (doctors, teachers, judges, police,
politicians etc.) are the audience.

8. Applied Research:
• A researcher might conduct an applied research study for a
decision maker who is uninterested in details of how it was
conducted and who wants only a brief summary of key
findings. Nonetheless, the researcher should also prepare a
complete, detailed research report. Others who have the time
and ability to evaluate the quality of the research may be
interested, or disputes might arise later.

9. Types of Applied Research
1. Evaluation Research
2. Action Oriented Research
3. Social Impact Assessment Research

10. Evaluation Research:
• Applied research in which one tries to determine how well a
program or policy is working or reaching its goals and
objectives.
• Many organizations e.g. government agencies and businesses
have made evaluation research part of their ongoing
operations.

11. Evaluation Research:
• It attracts researchers with impassioned views on issues like
environmental degradation and egalitarianism etc.
• It emphasizes revealing injustices, highlighting social
inequalities and conflicts etc.

12. Social Impact Research:
• It estimates the likely social consequences in advance of a
planned change.
• Applied research that documents the likely consequences for
various areas of social life if a major new change is introduced
into a community.
• Often social impact assessment research is part of a larger
environmental impact statement required by government
agencies.

13. Types Based on the Purpose of
Research
There can be three major types of research based on the
purpose of the study.
1. Exploratory Research
2. Descriptive Research
3. Explanatory Research
The research however can also be mult-purpose.

14. Exploratory Research:
• Research whose primary purpose is to examine a little
understood issue or phenomenon and to develop preliminary
ideas about it and move toward refined research questions.
• It is used when the subject is very new, we know little or
nothing about it and no one has yet explored it.

15. Explanatory Research:
• Our goal with it is to formulate more precise questions that
we can address in future research.
• To become familiar with the basic facts, setting, and concerns.
• Create general mental picture of conditions.
• Generate new ideas, conjectures, or hypotheses.

16. Descriptive Research:
• It presents picture of the specific details of a situation, social
setting, or relationship.
• Its primary purpose is to “paint a picture” using words or
numbers, and to present a profile, a classification of types, or
an outline of steps to answer questions such as who, when,
where, and how.
• It documents a causal process or mechanism and reports on
the background or context of a situation.

17. Explanatory Research:
• When encountering an issue that is known and with a
description of it, we might wonder “why” things are the way
they are. Addressing the “why” is the purpose of explanatory
research.
• Its primary purpose is to explain why events occur and to
build, elaborate, extend, or test theory.

18. • It is done to test a theory’s predictions or principles.
• Elaborate and enrich a theory’s explanation.
• Extend a theory to new issues and topics.
• Support or refute an explanation or prediction
• Link issues or topics to a general principle.
• Determine which of a several explanations is best.

19. Other Types
• Case Study Research
• Cross Sectional Research
• Longitudinal Research
1. Time-series Research
2. The Panel Study
3. Cohort Study

20. Case Study Research
• It examines many features of a few cases. The cases can be
individuals, organizations, movements, events, or geographic
units.
• The data on the case are detailed, varied, and extensive.
• Most case study research is qualitative. By contrast, almost all
cross-case (or non-case research) is quantitative.

21. Cross-Sectional Research
• Any research that examines information on many cases at one
point in time.
Longitudinal Research
• Any research that examines information from many units or
cases across more than one point in time.

22. Types of Longitudinal Research
Time-series Research
• LR in which information can be about different cases or people
in each of several time periods.
Panel Study
• LR in which information is about the identical cases or people
in each of several time periods.

23. Cohort Study
• It is similar to the panel study, but rather than observing the
exact same people, it studies a category of people who share a
similar life experience in specified period.
• LR that traces information about a category of cases or people
who shared a common experience at one time period across
subsequent time periods.