Exploratory, Constructive and Empirical Research
The supplied teaching source splits the research process into three forms and gives each of them a single line. Those three lines carry more design consequence than their length suggests — this page unpacks what each form commits you to, and where the source leaves you to work it out.
Three forms of one process
The source frames these as forms the research process takes, and it sets a single goal above all three: to produce new knowledge or deepen understanding of a topic or issue. That framing matters. You are not being asked to pick a category for your project; you are being told what shapes the work can take on its way to that goal.
Two details in that wording repay attention. The empirical entry defines a thing — information or evidence — where the other two define an activity, so the three definitions are not strictly parallel. And the constructive entry bundles two acts that need not co-occur: testing an existing theory, and proposing a solution. A study can do either without doing the other.
WHAT EACH FORM IS ACTUALLY DOING
| Form | Source definition | The question behind it | What it leaves you holding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exploratory | Helps to identify and define a problem or question | What is going on here, and what is the real question? | A defensible problem statement and a scoped question |
| Constructive | Tests theories and proposes solutions to a problem or question | Does the existing explanation hold, and what should be done? | A tested proposition, and usually a proposed intervention or model |
| Empirical | Information or evidence gained from observation, experience or experiment | What does the evidence from the field actually show? | A dataset gathered from the world rather than from the literature |
Column two is the source's wording. Columns three and four are our reading; the source does not elaborate on its three definitions.
How a project moves between the forms
The source lists the three forms and moves on. It does not say whether a project should use one or several, in what order, or how to tell when one phase has done its job. That silence is worth naming before we fill it, because the sequence below is a synthesis rather than a source requirement.
- Opening phaseExploratory. You have a topic and a hunch. Scanning the literature and talking to people in the setting turns that into a problem you can state in one sentence.
- Framing phaseStill exploratory, now against theory. The literature tells you which of your candidate questions has already been answered and which sits in a gap.
- Evidence phaseEmpirical. You gather observation, experience or experimental data to a design fixed before collection starts.
- Testing phaseConstructive. The evidence is set against the theory in your literature review — where does it support it, where does it contradict it?
- Proposal phaseConstructive. The tested position becomes a proposed solution, model or set of recommendations for the problem you defined at the start.
Two practical rules fall out of that loop. Do not begin collecting empirical data until the exploratory phase has produced a question stable enough to survive contact with a respondent. And do not propose a solution the empirical phase cannot support — a recommendation that outruns the evidence is the most visible weakness in a practitioner thesis.
The three forms in the exemplar volume
The exemplar volume — a published collection of seventeen master's-level project management studies — offers recognisable instances of each form. The volume itself does not classify its chapters this way; the mapping below is ours, taken from the published abstracts, and it is offered as illustration rather than as a taxonomy. The designs are covered properly on seventeen worked research designs.
One form dominant in each
A study of a fly-in, fly-out workforce
Described in its own abstract as exploratory. Thirty-one current workers were interviewed and the data analysed with a qualitative phenomenological methodology. The output is an account of a management challenge that was not previously well defined.
Control theory applied to project performance
A sample project was modelled as a transfer function in a numerical computing environment, then simulated for comparison. Theory is imported, tested against a modelled case, and a method for improving performance is proposed.
Integrated delivery in residential architecture
A comparison of delivery methods supported by a survey of fifty-two industry professionals using structured web-based questionnaires. The weight of the design sits on evidence gathered from the field.
How these three relate to the other vocabularies
The material you are working from uses several classification systems in quick succession, and they do not stack cleanly. Knowing which vocabulary you are in prevents a good deal of confusion when you come to write your methodology chapter.
FOUR VOCABULARIES, FOUR DIFFERENT QUESTIONS
| Vocabulary | The question it answers | Its terms | Where it is treated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Form of the process | What shape is this stage of the work taking? | Exploratory · constructive · empirical | This page |
| Purpose | What is the study for? | Descriptive · explanatory · evaluative | Descriptive, explanatory and evaluative research |
| Reasoning | Which way does the argument run between data and theory? | Inductive · deductive | Inductive and deductive reasoning |
| Design and medium | Are you working in words or numbers? | Qualitative · Quantitative | Qualitative and quantitative research compared |
The four vocabularies are all present in the supplied source. The observation that they cross-cut rather than nest is ours.
The overlap is not always accidental. The source's own terminology table lists exploratory as an associated term for both descriptive research and inductive reasoning — so the same word does duty in three of the four vocabularies above. If you use it in your thesis, say which sense you mean.
Choosing where to start
The decision that actually faces you is which form takes the weight of your project, given the time you have. The rules below follow from the source's definitions; the source does not set them out.
Which form should lead your design
How to tell you have got it right
Before you commit the design
- You can name which form each phase of your project is in, and say why that phase comes where it does
- The problem statement produced by your exploratory phase is written down and has not changed for a while
- Your empirical phase collects something that can actually bear on the question, not merely something that is available
- Any solution you propose is traceable to evidence you gathered or to theory you tested, and you can point at which
- You have said in the methodology which sense of exploratory you are using, given the source uses the word in more than one
- The forms you are not using are named and excluded deliberately, not by omission
One further test is worth applying at the end rather than the beginning: read your conclusions and ask which form produced each of them. If every conclusion traces back to the exploratory phase, the empirical work did not earn its place; if none of them do, the question you answered may not be the one you set out to ask. The mechanics of pulling evidence and theory together are covered on conducting the research and theorising the data.
What to carry forward
- Exploratory, constructive and empirical are forms the research process takes, not boxes your project has to fit into. Most work-based studies use at least two.
- The source gives one line to each form and nothing on sequencing. Any order you adopt is a design decision you own and must justify.
- Constructive research bundles two separable acts — testing a theory and proposing a solution. Be explicit about which one your study is doing.
- The word exploratory also appears in the source as an associated term for descriptive research and for inductive reasoning. Say which sense you mean.
- Do not start collecting empirical data until the exploratory phase has produced a question you would be willing to put in front of a participant.
Frequently asked questions
Can one project be exploratory and empirical at the same time?
Yes, and most practitioner projects are. The source presents the three as forms the research process takes rather than as exclusive project types. An exploratory interview round that also yields analysable data is doing both jobs at once; what matters is that you can say which purpose each activity is serving.
Is constructive research the same as design science or solution-building?
The supplied source does not say. It defines constructive research only as testing theories and proposing solutions to a problem or question, and does not connect the term to any wider tradition. If you intend to align your study with a named constructive or design-oriented tradition, you will need a source beyond this material.
Does empirical mean quantitative?
No. The source's definition is evidence gained from observation, experience or experiment, none of which is inherently numerical. An interview study is empirical. The quantitative and qualitative distinction is a separate vocabulary about the medium you work in.
Which form should a master's-level project management study lead with?
It depends on the maturity of the question. Where the literature already offers a clear explanation, a constructive test is usually the stronger contribution; where the phenomenon is poorly described in your context, exploratory work first will save you a wasted collection round. The source sets no default.
How do I show the examiner which form I used?
Name it in the methodology chapter and tie it to the sequence of your work — what the exploratory phase produced, what the empirical phase collected against it, and what the constructive phase concluded. Because the source offers no criteria for recognising the forms, an explicit statement is more useful than leaving the reader to infer it.
References and source attribution
- Naoum, S. G. 2013, Dissertation Research & Writing for Construction Students, 3rd ed., Routledge (set as the introductory reading, pp. 1–6).
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford (listed among the source's references).
- An edited volume of master's degree research projects in project management, 2018, academic publisher, 378 pp. — the exemplar volume; the three illustrative designs are paraphrased from the published abstracts.
- The supplied teaching source: master's-level teaching material introducing research methods for project management, supplied as study notes and accompanying slides.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- What is the difference between exploratory and empirical research in this library's source material?
- Give me a sequence for moving from an exploratory phase into data collection.
- Is constructive research the same thing as proposing a solution?
- How do the three forms of the research process relate to descriptive, explanatory and evaluative purposes?
- Show me an exemplar project management study that led with exploratory work.