Will my Research be Inductive or Deductive? Research Methodology Services - Statswork

Now, let us look at the topic of whether my research will be an inductive or deductive or you can say qualitative or quantitative? Well, the answer depends on the objective of the study and the type of research you conduct. If you want to validate an existing or a known theory, then your research is deductive. However, if you’re going to do analytical research or develop a new approach based on the sample data, then it is inductive. In some situations, the study may be both deductive and inductive depending upon the research problem at hand and the complexity of the problem. In this blog, I will explain to you the difference, meaning of inductive and deductive research with examples, and it’s up to you to decide whether your study comes under the inductive or deductive category. The statistical support services offered inductive research with different types.

Inductive Research

Inductive research makes an inference from the logical facts. For instance, if your friend has good taste in food and recommends a specific recipe for you to try, you may think that the method will be useful to eat (Burns, 2019). In other words, if there is no existing literature related to your study, and you are developing a new theory, then your research is inductive. The main limitation of the Inductive Analysis is that it can invalidate the inference and produce bias.

Inductive research involves the following types:

1. Study by generalization
2. Research through a statistical approach
3. Research-based on a sample
4. Research-based on analogous
5. Research-based on Prediction
6. Research-based on causal inference

Deductive Research

In deductive research, the inference cannot be a false statement concerning the past findings (Sharma, Sengupta, & Panja, 2019). That is, if a fair coin is tossed, the outcome will be either success (head) or failure (tail), and it cannot be inferred partially. In other words, you conduct the research with a known theory, develop a research hypothesis, and test the methods with the data collected for a valid conclusion.

Difference between inductive and deductive research

The main difference between the inductive and deductive research is that deductive research is to test the theory while the inductive research is to generate the new theory from existing data. Inductive research is qualitative and deductive research is quantitative in nature. However, the study could be a combination of both inductive and deductive. Deductive research is based on known facts, and inductive identifies new patterns. Inductive research lacks the validity of the hypothesis and produces bias, whereas deductive reasoning yields valid and reliable inference. Inductive research is actually carried out from observation to ideology, whereas deductive research is carried out from ideology to observation. Inductive research generalizes the results, and deductive research provides a specific or empirical result. Data analysis services provide inductive and deductive researches.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, inductive researches involve seeking new patterns with the observations and make it a theory and deductive researches involve analyzing the data with already proven theory and test the hypotheses of interest. The deductive method of research yields a perfect and valid inference than inductive research. In addition, both inductive and deductive research can be conducted together for complex datasets. However, inductive research is the most widely used Research Methodology in practice. The key thing is to keep in mind whether selecting the type of research is first to understand the purpose of the research. Identify which method is suitable to test the hypothesis and then draw conclusions based on the research question.