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Descriptive science is a category of science that involves descriptive research; that is, observing, recording, describing, and classifying phenomena.Descriptive research is sometimes contrasted with hypothesis-driven research, which is focused on testing a particular hypothesis by means of experimentation.
A research design typically outlines the theories and models underlying a project; the research question(s) of a project; a strategy for gathering data and information; and a strategy for producing answers from the data. [1] A strong research design yields valid answers to research questions while weak designs yield unreliable, imprecise or ...
Survey methodology is "the study of survey methods". [1] As a field of applied statistics concentrating on human-research surveys, survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and associated techniques of survey data collection, such as questionnaire construction and methods for improving the number and accuracy of responses to surveys.
The use of descriptive and summary statistics has an extensive history and, indeed, the simple tabulation of populations and of economic data was the first way the topic of statistics appeared. More recently, a collection of summarisation techniques has been formulated under the heading of exploratory data analysis : an example of such a ...
The final rule, "Let method be the servant, not the master," reminds researchers that methods are the means, not the end, of social research; it is critical from the outset to fit the research design to the research issue, rather than the other way around. Explanations in social theories can be idiographic or nomothetic.
Social statistics is the use of statistical measurement systems to study human behavior in a social environment. This can be accomplished through polling a group of people, evaluating a subset of data obtained about a group of people, or by observation and statistical analysis of a set of data that relates to people and their behaviors.
In medical research, epidemiology, social science, and biology, a cross-sectional study (also known as a cross-sectional analysis, transverse study, prevalence study) is a type of observational study that analyzes data from a population, or a representative subset, at a specific point in time—that is, cross-sectional data. [definition needed]
Thematic analysis is often understood as a method or technique in contrast to most other qualitative analytic approaches – such as grounded theory, discourse analysis, narrative analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis – which can be described as methodologies or theoretically informed frameworks for research (they specify ...