Descriptive Research
Descriptive research is any type of research that describes the “who, what, when, where” of a situation, not what caused it. It describes a situation, but in the end, tells us nothing about how the universe works.
A classic example of descriptive research is a case study. A case study is a research method used to get a full, detailed picture of one subject or a small group of subjects. For example, if I wanted to study anorexia and its link to drug use (not there is one) and I chose to study Nicole Richie.
So I follow Nicole around. I study her every move. I interview her. I talk to her friends (maybe Paris, maybe not…). I research her childhood. I get a complete picture of Nicole Richie. I learn all about her life. It would be a very interesting story (a detailed version of those VH1 specials). This would be a case study.
BUT there are a few very big problems with the case study. FIRST, I may learn all about her alleged anorexia and drug use (the what, how, where and when) but her story would never truly tell me the reason WHY. I would never be able to say with certainty that the link between anorexia and drugs is…….
The SECOND and maybe more significant weakness of a case study is that the results are not generalizable to the rest of the population. What that means is that studying Nicole would not give me any idea why millions of people become anorexic and use drugs. Studying just ONE person is not going to tell me anything about the many more out there. I must study a larger sample of people. Besides, is Nicole Richie a typical anorexic? No way, she is the daughter of a Commodore (Lionel) and the best friend (or arch enemy) or my one true love Paris Hilton. Studying Nicole would tell me nothing about the average anorexic, drug using girl.
We constantly make the mistake of taking a single case study and making policy changes based on that one example. Take Columbine for example. A horrible shooting occurred in a Colorado school and is was studied every which way by the popular media and scientists. Columbine became a case study for school violence. What happened was high schools around the country began making changes to their security policies because of the fear that another Columbine would occur. In reality, do you think your school was any more or less dangerous before or after Columbine? Probably not. But the fear of the case study of Columbine was the catalyst for unnecessary policy changes around the country. Case studies can be both powerful and dangerous.
Other types of research can also be descriptive research. For example, it is possible that surveys or naturalistic observation can be designed just to gather descriptive data. But for the sake of simplicity we will define them under their more common guise of correlational research.