Effective research methods are the tools by which information is gathered. Without the appropriate design and use of research methods, we are unlikely to gather quality information and create a shaky foundation for any review, evaluation, or future strategy.
Research has special significance in solving various operational and planning problems
of business and industry. Research needs to be focused on a particular field or area for studying the problems and seeking answers to various social problems.
16 Areas of Research
Social Research
Social research is an inquiry to identify, explore, describe, understand, explain, evaluate, and predict social phenomena involving human behavior.
Health Research
Health research describes people’s beliefs about health and illness and how they remain healthy and cure diseases.
Population Research
Population research tries to understand the population dynamics of a population’s size, structure, growth, distribution, and dispersal.
Business Research
Business research is a field of practical study in which a company obtains data and analyzes the same to manage the company better. Executives and managers who use business research methods can better understand their company, its position in the market, and how to improve it.
Marketing Research
One of the main components of business research is marketing research. Marketing research is concerned with applying theories, problem-solving methods, and techniques to identify and solve problems in marketing.
This information identifies and defines marketing opportunities and problems, generates, refines, and evaluates marketing actions, monitors marketing performance, and improves understanding of the marketing process.
Agricultural Research
Agricultural research uses laboratories, field facilities, and farmer interactions to raise food production and quality.
Biomedical Research
Biomedical research is generally known as medical research conducted to aid and support the development of knowledge in the field of medicine.
It is a type of research that is conducted to increase the understanding of fundamental life processes, such as discovering the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) – one-half of the genetic code of life – or investigating the genetics of lipid disease.
Clinical Research
Clinical research addresses the essential questions of normal function and disease using human subjects.
Outcomes Research
Such research focuses on the end results of health care, the tangible and quantifiable manifestations of disease upon patients and society, and the determinants of these outcomes.
Internet Research
Internet research uses the internet, especially the World Wide Web (www).
To the extent that the internet is widely and readily accessible to hundreds of millions of people in many parts of the world, it can provide practically instant information on most topics and profoundly impact how ideas are formed, and knowledge is created.
Typical applications of Internet research include personal research on a particular subject, students’ research for academic projects and papers, and journalists’ and other writers’ research stories.
Archival Research
An archive is a way of sorting and organizing older documents, whether digitally (photographs online, E-mail, etc.) or manually (putting them in a folder, photo albums, etc.).
Archiving is one part of the curating process typically carried out by a curator. The art of searching for archives consists of three main steps:
- Thinking about questions to find the archive in mind, such as:
- Do I need specific information, or am I curious about a broad topic?
- What is my topic of interest?
- Should I be using an archive or a library?
- Get the basic facts about the topic of interest.
- Use websites associated with the particular archive building to search for further assistance..
Empirical Research
Empirical research is research that derives its data using direct observation or experiment. Such research is used to answer a question or test a hypothesis.
The result is based upon actual evidence as opposed to theory or conjecture, and as such, they can be replicated in follow-up studies.
Such research may also be conducted according to hypothetico-deductive procedures, such as those developed from the work of R.A. Fisher, who is known as the father of statistics.
Legal Research
Legal research means scientific and purposive investigation or inquiry of a problem or issue of any discipline. Legal research is a scientific investigation into a legal issue or problem and gathering evidence or information to ascertain an assumption or verify some hypotheses.
Education Research
Education research evaluates different aspects of education, including students’ learning, teaching methods, training of teachers, and classroom dynamics.
Engineering Research
Engineering research is systematically learning about and building new technologies to design a product.
Historical Research
Research may also be carried out from a historical perspective. Such research is known as historical research.
Historical research is embodied in the historical method. The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use historical sources and other evidence to research and write history.
Though items may vary depending on the subject matter and researcher, the following concepts are usually the parts of most formal historical research:
- Identification of date of origin;
- Evidence of localization;
- Recognition of authorship;
- Analysis of data;
- Identification of integrity;
- Attribution of credibility.
The phrase “my research” is also used to describe a person’s entire collection of information about a particular subject.