What is the Purpose of Research?

There are three purposes of research:

1. Exploratory Research: As the name suggests, exploratory research is conducted to explore the research questions and may or may not offer a final conclusion to the research conducted. It is conducted to handle new problem areas which haven’t been explored before. Exploratory research lays the foundation for more conclusive research and data collection. 

2. Descriptive Research:  Descriptive research focuses on throwing more light on current issues through a process of data collection. Descriptive studies are used to describe the behavior of a sample population. In descriptive research, only one variable (anything that has quantity or quality that varies) is required to conduct a study. The three main purposes of descriptive research are describing, explaining and validating the findings. 

3. Explanatory Research: Explanatory research or causal research, is conducted to understand the impact of certain changes in existing standard procedures. Conducting scientific experiments is the most popular form of casual research. 

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Research Design Comparisons

Depending on the type of research to be conducted, here is a table on the types of methods:

	Exploratory Research	Descriptive Research	Explanatory Research
Research approach used	Unstructured	Structured	Highly structured
Research conducted through	Asking research questions	Asking research questions	By using research hypotheses.
When is it conducted?	Early stages of decision making	Later stages of decision making	Later stages of decision making