What is Descriptive and Analytical Research

Descriptive research comprise surveys and fact finding enquiries of several kinds. The major objective of descriptive research is description of the state of affairs as it exists at present. In business research and social science, we often use the term Ex-post facto research for descriptive research studies. The major characteristics of this method are that researcher has no control over the variable; he can only report what is happening or what has happened. Most ex-post facto research projects are used for descriptive studies in which researcher seeks to measure such items:

• Frequency of Shopping
• Preference of people etc.

In analytical research, researcher has to use information or facts already available and analyze these to make a critical evaluation of material.