Experimental Research

Experimental research is a scientific way of studying variables in artificial or laboratory settings. Experimental research may  be either true experimental  or quasi-experimental. The difference between these two experimental design is that true experimental research involves randomization while quasi-experimental research doesn’t. In experimental research usually three types of variables are involved: independent, dependent and extraneous variables. Independent variable is that variable which is manipulated for the purpose of seeing its effect on the dependent variable. Sometimes we use the word ‘treatment’ for independent variable. Dependent variable is that variable upon which we are studying the effect of a treatment or an independent variable. While extraneous variables are those variables which may possibly affect the dependent variable directly or indirectly but which are not included in the study. So we try to control them during the study in order to make sure that only independent variable will have an effect on the dependent variable. Experimental research is quantitative in nature. It is usually conducted for the purpose of studying the cause and effect relationship between variables. Since, Experimental research is conducted in a manipulated situation which may be different from the natural setting; therefore its results may not be perfectly generalized to the real world situations. In this case, we say that the experiment has poor external validity. On the other hand, since the experimenter has full control over the variables or a situation being studied, therefore, we can say that true experimental research has high internal validity.

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Descriptive Research

The main function of descriptive research is studying the existing things on the basis of "as and where they are". In other words, descriptive research studies things in their natural settings with taking all the related variables on board, and need not isolate one or two variables for the purpose of the study. So, it doesn’t need any artificial or controlled environment for its operations. In descriptive research, the researcher has no controlled over variables being studied, but he only studies them. It is usually used for describing, explaining or validating things. Descriptive research may be either quantitative or qualitative. And sometimes it may appear in a blended form utilizing both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. As mentioned above, the sole purpose of descriptive research is to just describe or explain a problem or situation, or validate a phenomenon. It means that it is neither interested in knowing the causal relationship between variables, nor it wants to make any prediction on the basis of collected data. In descriptive research we normally use descriptive statistics (mean, median, and mode) and frequency distributions for analyzing and presentation of data.

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Basic Research
Applied Research
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