What are two types of research design?

Among the many types of research design, two that stand out prominently include descriptive research and experimental research.

Descriptive research is done without affecting, changing, or manipulating the environment or its factors. In terms of what this may look like for a research study, it may entail observing children on a playground, having shoppers complete surveys at a mall, or counting the number of times a customer asks for service in a restaurant before getting...

Among the many types of research design, two that stand out prominently include descriptive research and experimental research.

Descriptive research is done without affecting, changing, or manipulating the environment or its factors. In terms of what this may look like for a research study, it may entail observing children on a playground, having shoppers complete surveys at a mall, or counting the number of times a customer asks for service in a restaurant before getting it.

Descriptive research can also be done by looking correlations, or relationships, between two naturally existing things, or variables. For instance, a correlation may be observed between scores on school exams and numbers of hours studied per student.

Likewise, experimental research design is one in which the experimenter, or investigator, actually manipulates or alters the environment to see if a particular outcome is reached. For example, a researcher may decide to assemble two groups of asthma patients. She may designate one group to a medication she is testing to help alleviate asthma symptoms and the other group to a placebo medication (a medication with no therapeutic effect). After a certain amount of time on the medications, she will collect information, or data, to see if the experimental asthma medication affected the outcome of her patients' asthma.