TYPES OF DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH

There are different types of descriptive research. Note that this categorization is not sacrosanct. It
is just to help you understand the research more clearly.

Survey Studies

Most of the times, descriptive research is called survey research. But it is better to call survey a
category under descriptive research survey itself is the most widely used method for obtaining descriptive and evaluative information.

This can be used when trying to solve problems in education, government, industry, politics, organization etc. When detailed descriptions of existing phenomena are collected, they can be used with the aim of employing the data to justify current conditions or practices or to make more intelligent plans for improving them.

In a survey studies, we may need to collect three types of data
 Data concerning existing status: e.g. find out the study habits of students of NOUN v Comparison of status and standards: e.g. to compare the study habits of distance education students and those in face to face

Means of improving status: e.g. to find ay of helping distance education students improve on their study habits. Survey can be broad or narrow in scope. They may be confined to a small geographical area like community, a local government a state or even the whole country or more.
Data may be gathered from every member of a specified population or from a carefully selected sample. 

The steps involved in survey research are in general, similar to what obtains for descriptive research:

1. Planning: This involves determining what topic to be studied, the type of population to be investigated and the methods and procedures to be used for data collection. 
2. Sampling: This involves a decision about which people from the population to be included in the survey. Note that if you are going to generalize from the sample to the population. Then your selected sample must be representative of the population. 
3.  Development of data collection instrument: This involves listing the questions and planning for the format of the instrument to be used. Is it personal interview, questionnaires, rating scales etc? 
4. Carrying out the survey: This includes pre-testing the instruments to see if it will yield the desired data, interviewing the subjects or administering the questionnaires and verifying the accuracy of the data collected. 
5. Processing the data: This includes tabulating the data, analyzing the data (you can use computers if you like) interpreting the results and reporting the findings. 

Analysis of documents:

Documents and records can be used to bring out pertinent data. Documentary analysis otherwise
referred to as context activity or informational analysis is very much like the historical research. But while historical research is primarily concerned with the more distant past, descriptive research is concerned chiefly with the present. 

There are wide varieties of documentary surveys made; some researchers can analyze judicial decisions, state laws or court rulings. Some others may collect and analyze data describing existing practices, processes and conditions from administrative records, forms and reports, committee reports and minutes of meetings, budgets and financial records etc. university catalogues, bulletins, syllabi, courses of study, reading lists, text book and others may be useful in the investigation.

Also newspaper, periodicals, motion pictures, cartoons and other sources can also help. Some of the advantages include:

• To describe the prevailing practices or conditions in the field 
• To discover the relative importance of, or interest in certain problems or topics i.e. to spot trends. 
• To discover the level of difficulty of presentations available in text books or in other publications. 
• To evaluate bias, prejudices or propaganda in text book presentations. 
• To analyze the types of errors and weakness in performance. 
• To evaluate the relationships of stated objectives and what is being done practically. 
• To identify the literary style, concepts or beliefs of a writer. 

Documentary research  produces valuable information, but the method can have its own limitations. A faulty conclusion from the data may be drawn by the investigator. There is no representativeness in the samples of sources of materials used.

Correlational Studies

In order to have a fuller understanding of human behaviour is to begin by testing out simple
]relationship between factors and elements which are supposed to have some bearings on the phenomenon in question.

The value of Correlational research is that it is able to achieve this end. You know that one of the primary purposes of science is to discover relationships among phenomena with a view ultimately to predicting and, in some situations, controlling their occurrences. Most of the researches in social sciences and education are concerned with the establishment of interrelationships among variables. Therefore we can simply say that Correlational studies are concerned with determining the extent of relationship existing between variables they enable us to measure the extent to which variations in one variable are associated with variations in another. For instance, what is the relationship between the income level of individuals and their expenditure patterns? What is the link between personality and academic achievement?

Correlational studies are intended to answer such questions as:

• Is there a relationship between two variables or two sets of data? If the answer is yes then look at the questions below 
• What is the direction of the relationship? 
• What is the magnitude of the relationship? This is determined by a correlation coefficient. Correlational studies can be broadly classified into two methods. 

a) Relational Studies: Which is particularly useful in exploratory studies in the fields
where title or no previous research has been conducted. It is a shot in the dark in order to verify haunches which you have about presumed relationships between some characteristics of variables.

b) Prediction Studies: Which are usually conducted in an area having a firm and secure knowledge base? It is based on the assumption that at least some of the factors that will lead to the behaviour to be predicted are present and measurable at the time the prediction is made.

Causal-Comparative studies

Some of the times, it is very necessary to discover how and why a particular event occurs,
instead to confirming ourselves to investigations about what the event is like. So you try to compare the similarities and differences among phenomena to find what factors or circumstances seem to accompany or contribute to the occurrence of certain events, conditions, activities, practices etc. In the behavioural sciences you cannot select, control or manipulate factors that necessary to study cause effect relationships. 

You see that you cannot manipulate things like domestic background, social lass, intelligence, etc. so if you can not manipulate the independent variable and establish the controls that are required in true experiment, you can conduct a causal comparative study. Here, you study a real life situation in which subjects have experienced what you want to investigate.


Causal comparative studies provide the means for tackling problems that cannot be probed in laboratory situations.


Again they yield valuable information and elites about the nature of phenomena and are well
suited to many types of field studies seeking to establish causal relationships. Their limitations
are:

• Lack of control is a serious limitations and weakness 
• It is usually difficult to identify the relevant factors causing the particular conditions or phenomena
• When a relationship between variable is established, it is difficult to distinguish between the cause and the effect. 
• The classification of subjects into dichotomous groups for the purpose of comparison also presents problems 
• In comparative studies of natural situations, you do not have the same control over the selection of subjects as you have in experimental studies. 

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

i. What are the particular steps of survey research?

ii. Explain the types of descriptive research?