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1 results

  • 2 - Exploratory Research

  • from Part I - Discovery
  • Edited by Colin Elman, Syracuse University, New York, John Gerring, University of Texas, Austin, James Mahoney, Northwestern University, Illinois
  • Book:
    The Production of Knowledge
    Published online:
    11 March 2020
    Print publication:
    19 March 2020, pp 17-41

  • Summary

    Exploratory research is an attempt to discover something new and interesting by working through a research topic and is the soul of good research. Exploratory studies, a type of exploratory research, tend to fall into two categories: those that make a tentative first analysis of a new topic and those that propose new ideas or generate new hypotheses on an old topic. This chapter examines the history of exploratory studies, offers a typology of exploratory studies, and proposes a new type of exploratory study that is especially helpful for theorizing empirical material at an early stage. It argues that exploratory studies are an important part of a social scientist’s toolkit.