In our creativity research, we’ve learned that deliberate and cognitive are types of creativity. Creativity is not limited to the artsy types who are spontaneous and emotional. This style of creativity will require research. Think of Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein. They were creative leaders who were highly deliberate and cognitively creative with their scientific innovative efforts. This is where research design comes into play with creativity. Research design refers to the overall strategy that will be used to integrate the different parts of a study in a coherent and logical way. It’s a blueprint of how you will collect data, measure it and analyze. It allows you to test a hypothesis. It’s important that your research be conducted in a way that is neutral, reliable, validified and generalized. If you’ve ever taken a science class in college, you’ve probably written a research paper or read plenty of them. There are a lot of types of research designs but they can be broken into two main categories: quantitative and qualitative. Qualitative design is focused on the what’s and how’s whereas quantitative is focused on variables that include numbers and stats. I like to think of these as macro and micro styles of research. Quantitative is more of the testing and measuring, where numbers, graphs and tables focus in on small details. Qualitative is the broader research in the form of general ideas for theories that will be represented in words instead of numbers. Breaking research design down further, there are 4 major types: descriptive, correlational, experimental, diagnostic and explanatory. Let’s dive a little deeper into each of these.
1. Descriptive: this style of research design refers to a process of observing and describing something that exists in a natural environment without any interference. It helps provide answers of who, what, when and how with a particular problem. It’s best for gathering unbiased data the can reveal certain behaviors or phenomena.
2. Correlational: this examines the relationship between two or more variables without intervention. Think of this as a cause and effect situation. One thing happens that causes the second to occur. It identifies the link between two things. The correlation can be positive or negative. Positive meaning, they both change in the same direction and negative meaning they change in opposite directions.
3. Experimental: this is where the researcher will manipulate one variable to see how it interacts with another. Typically, these studies are done with one control group and one experimental. It will tell you cause and effect relations between variables for the experimental group and the placebo effect of the control group.
4. Diagnostic: this style of research looks to investigate an underlying cause of something in order to find the best solution.
5. Explanatory (exploratory): this is a fun one. It’s goes into depth on topics where there hasn’t been much research previously done. More mystery here and it helps to gain insight into something unknown. This looks for the “why” of some event through establishing a cause-effect relationship.
There are many benefits to conducting research, so having a proper design and understanding of which is best to use for what type of research is important. It can make or break your research study. With proper design, you can really get a deeper understanding of the subject in question. It can assist in solving complex problems within an industry and increase understanding of topics that may not be well studied. The type of research problem will determine the type of design that you use! In business, it will help you gain success to make informed decisions with data.
