Applied research—Using basic research methods, the outcome of the research is applied to a business problem.

Basic research—The clinical or scientific method of research. This type of research is often done in laboratories or under controlled circumstances.

Four Types of Research Methods: Reporting—A summary or incomplete review of existing data; Descriptive—Most often used in marketing or sales. This type of research always asks who, what, when, where, why, and how in research questions; Exploratory—Using focus groups or a small study to get a feel for the problem; Predictive/Causal—Research conducted where one unit is held steady, while the experiment is conducted on the other unit, which tests whether the experiment itself is the reason for change in the experimental unit.

Time Factors for Research: Longitudinal—A research study performed on a sample over a period of time; Cross-sectional—A research study done only once, which provides a snapshot of what is occurring somewhere at a particular time.

Four Types of Research Validity: Construct Validity—the theoretical or practical underpinnings of the hypotheses and measurement of the variables; External Validity—the comparability or generalizability of the findings to other samples and settings; Internal Validity—for descriptive, explanatory, or causal studies this is basically an answer to the question of whether we saw what we thought we saw; Conclusion Validity—did we use the proper statistical tools to draw these conclusions?

Operational definition—is a definition stated in terms of specific testing or measurement criteria. These terms must have empirical referents, which means we must be able to count or measure them in some way. The object to be defined can be physical one (i.e., a machine tool), or it can be abstract one (i.e., achievement motivation).

Level of Measurement—the characteristic