1.

1 Research Design
Akthar (2016:68) defines research design as the structure, plan and strategy worked out by a
research to obtain the answers for the research questions. The three types of research design are
discussed below.

1.1.1 Descriptive Research

Descriptive research focuses mainly on the ‘what’ instead of the ‘how’ of a problem according to
Nassaji (2015:130). This method’s goal is to define and depict a paradox and its attributes. As
such, to gather data observations and surveys are used. Qualitative data that has been collected is
usually analysed using quantitative methods.

1.1.2 Exploratory Research

According to Manerikar (2014:95), exploratory research is the initial research done to resolve the
nature of a problem. It allows a precise understating of a problem to researchers and is a flexible
creative manner to understand the problem. Usual methods of data collection are interviews of
individuals and group discussions.

1.1.3 Explanatory Research

Freitas et al. (2016:7) state that the intent of explanatory research is to illuminate fundamental
factors regarding the existence of some phenomena and to establish the link between the aspects
of their environment. It provides the base to study correlation between variables and dependency
between variables and tries to explain the factors behind phenomena.