Explanatory Research

A brief definition of explanitory research found on one web site glossary does not reflect the bredth of opinion about the appropriate place for its use:

• It is sometimes used as a synomym for causal research , in that it looks for the explanations for some phenomenon, which in some cases involves looking for causes.

• Other people use the term in a broader sense, in that not all explanations involve the articulation of causes, but might well be looking to explain other things such as the nature of the interplay between a number of variables, as in the PowerPoint outline of the use of an elaboration model rather than statistical analysis.

• Some restrict its use to quantitative research, but others feel that it can describe research using either quantitative or qualitative data, as the National Center for Social Research does.

• Some people feel it is merely a preparatory step for the real research, while others regard it as full research in and of itself.
• Some see it as equivalent to experimental research.

This one of the "objectives" Burke Johnson recommends for use in his [PDF] article recommending a cleanup of superfluous labels in the Educational Research Classification Literature.