Definitions for "Exploratory research"
Keywords:  research, conclusive, prelude, csm, aim
An attempt to describe, understand, and develop a theory about a social issue.
Searching for potential issues rather than testing for problems already assumed to exist. Exploratory research is an important step in usability testing and is often achieved by letting representative users freely explore a system while noting any problems that they encounter.
a type of research designed to accumulate background information to help define a problem; a prelude to conclusive research that aims to help decision makers choose a course of action in a particular problem or situation. Characterized by the lack of a formal research design. Example: research to gather information on how consumers make decisions on computer purchases, including specific uses of the computer, the criteria used in evaluating alternatives, the number of brands and models considered, the number of stores visited, the importance of advertising in the brand selection process, and the importance of sales help at the retail level. Sometime called informal research. See causal research and descriptive research.
is a method used when gathering primary information for a market survey where targeted consumers / customers are asked very general questions geared toward eliciting a lengthy answer.
In a broad sense, descriptive, survey or experimental data may be collected to inspect for trends to generate hypotheses to test in future experiments. Return to Alphabetical List