Continuous or Quantitative Variables

1. Interval - scale Variables:

2. Continuous Ordinal Variables
3. Ratio - scale Variables

Qualitative or Discrete Variables

1. Nominal variables
2. Ordinal variables
3. Dummy variables from quantitative variables
4. Preference variables
5. Multiple response variables

Multiple Response Variables

Multiple response variables are those, which can assume more than
one value. A typical example is a survey questionnaire about the
use of computers in research. The respondents were asked to
indicate the purpose(s) for which they use computers in their
research work. The respondents could score more than one
category.

Qualitative research - Qualitative research allows you to explore perceptions,

attitudes and motivations and to understand how they are formed. It provides depth of
information which can be used in its own right or to determine what attributes will
subsequently be measured in quantitative studies. Verbatim quotes are used in reports
to illustrate points and this brings the subject to life for the reader. However, it relies
heavily on the skills of the moderator, is inevitably subjective and samples are small.
Techniques include group discussions/workshop sessions, paired interviews,
individual in-depth interviews and mystery shopping (where the researcher plays the
role of a potential student, etc in order to replicate the overall experience).

Quantitative research - Quantitative research is descriptive and provides hard data on

the numbers of people exhibiting certain behaviours, attitudes, etc. It provides
information in breadth and allows you to sample large numbers of the population
It is, however, structured and does not yield the reasons behind behaviour or why
people hold certain attitudes. Techniques commonly used in HE/FE include postal
surveys (particularly appropriate in the case of student populations where name and
address information is available), telephone surveys (appropriate for surveys of
employers), on-line or web-based surveys (very cost-effective for reaching audiences
where e-mail penetration is high, such as students and university/college staff) and
mystery shopping (in this case to test quantifiable aspects of the service).

Applied research is research undertaken to solve practical problems rather than to acquire
knowledge for knowledge sake.

Basic research is experimental and theoretical work undertaken to acquire new knowledge
without looking for long-term benefits other than the advancement of knowledge.
Casual Research explores the effect of one thing on another and more specifically,
the effect of one variable on another. The research is used to measure what impact a
specific change will have on existing norms and allows market researchers to predict
hypothetical scenarios upon which a company can base its business plan. For
example, if a clothing company currently sells blue denim jeans, casual research can
measure the impact of the company changing the product design to the colour white.
Following the research, company bosses will be able to decide whether changing the
colour of the jeans to white would be profitable. To summarise, casual research is a
way of seeing how actions now will affect a business in the future.

Exploratory research is a type of research conducted because a problem has not

been clearly defined.

Descriptive Research is the most commonly used and the basic reason for carrying
out descriptive research is to identify the cause of something that is happening/
concern with current status of phenomena. For instance, this research could be used
in order to find out what age group is buying a particular brand of cola, whether a
company’s market share differs between geographical regions or to discover how
many competitors a company has in their marketplace.