What Are The Differences Between Applied And Action Research?

Basic research advances fundamental knowledge about the human world. It focuses on refuting or supporting theories that explain how this world operates, what makes things happen, why social relations are a certain way, and why society changes. Basic research is the source of most new scientific ideas and ways of thinking about the world. It can be exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory; however, explanatory research is the most common.
Basic research generates new ideas, principles and theories, which may not be immediately utilized; though are the foundations of modern progress and development in different fields. Today's computers could not exist without the pure research in mathematics conducted over a century ago, for which there was no known practical application at that time.
Basic research rarely helps practitioners directly with their everyday concerns. Nevertheless, it stimulates new ways of thinking about deviance that have the potential to revolutionize and dramatically improve how practitioners deal with a problem.
A new idea or fundamental knowledge is not generated only by basic research can build new knowledge. Nonetheless, basic research is essential for nourishing the expansion of knowledge. Researchers at the center of the scientific community conduct most of the basic research.

Basic research is the step before applied research. You need basic research to get applied research, therefore it is more important. Basic research led to many discoveries that greatly advanced our knowledge on science, like the structure of DNA. Without basic research, we would not be where we are today.

Applied research is making use of research to create a practical product or process.

. Action research has relevance only to classroom situation while applied research can probe, into practical problems of greater complexity and wider applicability.

The term 'applied research' is attributed to a study of the relationship and also the applicability of theories that can give you the solution of the problem. In other words you can also say that it is the kind of research that is aimed at gaining knowledge by the use of which a specific need can be met.

This kind if research is more pertinent in today's result oriented world where huge amounts of money is being used to find the solution of a problem and primarily it is used in the context of clinical research. If you are going through a trade magazines you will often find the use of the term as research laboratories publish the results of the research that are applicable to make life easy and had business potential.

Basic research is also known as pure or fundamental research and it is the research that is carried out to gain an understanding about the topic and it may not have an applied or commercial aspect. Its purpose is to gain an understanding and more knowledge about the subject and it may not have a specific objective other than uncovering new things. On the other hand, applied research is basically started with a purpose or a practical objective in mind. It is specific in nature and investigates something specific rather than exploring broadly as in the basic research.