What Are Some Advantages And Disadvantages Of Descriptive Research?

Descriptive research gives researchers the opportunity to use both quantitative and qualitative data in order to find data and characteristics about the population or phenomenon that is being studied. Using descriptive research has both its advantages and disadvantages. Researchers can focus on these strengths and weaknesses in order to implement a research design that can account for them. The advantages of descriptive research include data collection and life experiences, while the method can be disadvantageous in the sense of confidentiality and objectivity and error.

The data collection for descriptive research presents a number of advantages as it can provide a very multifaceted approach. Data can include case, studies, observation or surveys and give several angles on the information. For example, within descriptive research surveys can give statistical information about an event as well as give an idea about how people experienced the event. Another advantage of descriptive research is the unique data collection form of case studies. These case studies can be collected from individuals’ personal accounts or from written data such as newspaper reports. This data collection allows descriptive research to provide an insight into life experiences in a way that other research methods can’t. It can remove barriers of strict academic approaches so that researchers can witness how others experience an event.

Confidentiality is a big disadvantage of descriptive research. Subjects that researchers are question may not always be truthful and instead will give answers that they feel that the researcher wants to hear. In interviews, participants may also refuse to answer any questions that they feel are too personal or difficult. Descriptive research also carried with it an observers paradox, if a participant knows that someone is observing them, they may change the way that they act. Subjectivity and error also play a disadvantageous role in descriptive research. Questions presented by a researcher are predetermined and prescriptive, while studies can contain errors. A researcher may choose what information to use and ignore data that does not conform to their hypothesis.

  The purpose of descriptive research is just to describe and not to establish any relationships. The advantages of descriptive research are that as the study does not involve certain variables to be studied, it can provide a lot of information. It is useful in identifying further areas of research. It is very useful in studying abstract ideas like customer satisfaction etc where it is not possible to develop models. The study is also very flexible, you select the method depending on what you expect to find rather then selecting the method and then studying. The main disadvantage of this type f research is that you can not identify the cause behind a phenomenon; you can just describe and report the observations.

Descriptive research include the data collection that describes the events and then then organizing the data through visual aids. There are a number of advantages of descriptive research like education search and experiences may contain many variables that are not realistically controllable. These variables can be studies through descriptive research. Secondly, descriptive research may collect the data from large geographical area. Thirdly, descriptive research is less expensive and time consuming. On the other hand, there are some disadvantages of descriptive research. The first disadvantage is that descriptive research requires more skills. Secondly, response rate is low in this research. Thirdly, results of this research can change over the period of time.