The word “research” has multiple meanings and its precise definition varies from discipline to discipline and expert to expert. Across disciplines and experts, however, there seems to e agreement with respect to the functions it performs, that is, to find answers to your research questions. You can use any of the research methods/approaches to achieve this objective. These methods range from the fairly informal, based upon clinical impressions, to the strictly scientific, adhering to the conventional expectations of scientific procedures. Research means using one of these methods to find answers to your questions. However, when you say that you are undertaking a research study to find answers to a question, you are implying that the process being applied: