Types Of Research Studies In Education

There are various types of research studies in education. The most common types of research are quantitative, qualitative and mixed research. These types of research studies in education are generally categorized into qualitative and quantitative designs. These designs are upon the primary purpose of research. The purpose of research is to explore; this attempts to come up with ideas about educational phenomenon, to describe: this attempt to describe the educational phenomenon, predict; this tries to foretell an educational phenomenon and finally to explain which aim at showing why and how an educational phenomenon operates. The most common types of research studies in education are explained below

Quantitative research

Quantitative research follows a deductive research process. These types of research in education involve collection of data as well as data analysis. This research involves the use of questionnaire and customer survey. The process can be performed over telephone, via email or post or even through your website. The process can also be conducted face to face with a pen and a clipboard. This research involves asking people their opinion in a structured way. The main reason for asking questions is to help you get hard facts and statistics that will guide you to get meaningful result.

There are three most common types of quantitative research. The three types are descriptive quantitative research, comparative quantitative research and relationship-based quantitative research questions. Descriptive quantitative research helps to quantify the variable data that you have measured and you are interested in. on other hand, comparative quantitative research helps to identify the difference between two or more variable and relationship-based quantitative research question aims at describing how two or more variable are associated.

Qualitative research

This type of research studies in education that follows a deductive process. The qualitative research involves collection and analysis of non numerical or data. The most common methods of doing qualitative research include: evaluation of contents, focus group, observation which include giving narratives; giving comments is also a key factor in observation, interview and survey which are open-ended

Mixed Research

Among the other types of research in education, mixed research bring together the qualitative and quantitative research techniques in a single study. This is a type of research that attempts to use a fundamental principle of mixed research. According to the fundamental principle of mixed research, a method with complementary strength and overlapping weakness should be used to do research.

There are two type of mixed research which are mixed model research and mixed method research. Qualitative and quantitative approaches are mixed in mixed model research within or across the stages of research process. The Qualitative and quantitative approaches in within-stage mixed model research within one or more stages of research while in across-stage mixed model, the qualitative and quantitative approaches are mixed across two of the stages of research.

The most preferred types of research studies in education are mixed research. This is simply because both the quantitative and qualitative research has some weaknesses. Some of these weaknesses limit the purposes of research which are appropriate.