EXPLORATORY 

METHOD 
SELECTION
• You can ask a sequence of questions to determine
what type of studies, or research, should be
conducted.
• First, is the goal of the study to describe or explore
the system under test (nonanalytic)
• Is it to quantify, associate, or measure the
relationship between two factors (analytic)
• If analytic, were the independent variables,
interventions, or controls randomly determined?
• If they were, then the experimentation (randomized
control trial) are more relevant than a study.
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• Finally, ascertain when the observations of
outcomes are collected
• If you have access to a system under test or a
population for a considerable period of time, and
before the event or incident of concern occurs, you
can conduct a longitudinal study
• If you do not have access to a population for study
over a longer period of time, then a cross‐sectional
study may be suitable to answer some research
questions
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• However, the cross‐sectional method limits the
ability to understand sequencing or causality.
• An alternative, if the event or incident of concern
has already occurred, is that you can conduct
case‐control (or retrospective) studies.
• Case‐control studies allow you to identify a
system or population with the characteristics (has
installed a certain IDS, or was compromised by a
particular malware strain) and compare them to
similar analogous systems or environments
without the events or factors in play.
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• Longitudinal studies provide the most in‐depth
understanding of a system.
• Longitudinal methods capture data on variables
changing over time, which provides information
on how individuals evolve and the time sequences
of events.
• These help with inferring causality of variables.
• However, longitudinal methods require the most
investment as you must be willing and able to track a
population over the length of the study.
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• If you are unable to execute a longitudinal study a
backup option is using the cross‐sectional
method.
• Cross‐sectional study only takes a snapshot of a
population and therefore is much less labor‐ and
cost‐intensive.
• However, cross‐sectional study limits the amount
of information you can infer.
• If you do want to try to figure out traits that lead to a
specific result, like a malware infection of a
computer, you can utilize the case‐control method.
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• Finally, ecological studies are useful methods
when you lack data at an individual level but only
have aggregate statistics around geography or
time.
• It is important to point out that in medicine and other
domains,
• cohort studies are often conducted first by
identifying initial infection or event, and then
studying the population to determine the mortality
and consequences.
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• Finally, ecological studies are useful methods
when you lack data at an individual level but only
have aggregate statistics around geography or
time.
• It is important to point out that in medicine and other
domains,
• cohort studies are often conducted first by
identifying initial infection or event, and then
studying the population to determine the mortality
and consequences.