What is the type of research study by which one analyses secondary sources to make reasonable predictions? So first of all apologies if this is not the right site to be asking these questions. I'm as new as new can be in the world of research, so I'm probably not even using the correct terminology at times.
With that out of the way, my research is centered around evolving technologies and the ways in which those technologies will intertwine. For e.g, Moores Law is breaking down, but with the Quantum Supremecy being broken (which basically means faster computers) this will enable the continued growth of other technologies like AI, more immerse VR, etc. I won't go into too much detail here but safe to say my research won't be based on primary sources, since of course I can't exactly gather first-hand data on say, quantum computers. At least for now anyway.
So all my research will include secondary sources, and with this body of research, I then want to make predictions on how technology will grow and how, though starting out in isolation, how these technologies will have an impact on eachother and by extension how this will have an impact on us.
I've looked online for an appropriate methodology, but a lot of times there's talk of an experiment, which I am not doing. Also mentioned a lot is the use of participants, which I am also not relying upon. It's just the pure analysis of secondary sources.
To help clarify things further I'll mention some of the features of the type of research I'm doing: Again all my research will be based on secondary sources. The type of data that I'll be collecting will likely be qualitative, though I imagine that there will be a small amount of quantitative data there too. With the type of research I want to conduct, I imagine a lot of my predictions will support eachother, and if so, I plan to rely upon the chain argument. This is where for e.g if we know that A &gt; B, and B &gt; C, we can deduce that A &gt; C. (However, I know that research must predict the type of reasoning, not vice versa, it's just that I suspect, given the nature of what I'm researching that this type of argument will be more appropriate than not).
I feel comfortable with the research itself by the way, but I'm having a hard time tieing it to a methodology in order to give the research itself a sense of structure.
Any help would be very much appreciated ^_^
This sounds like the pre-research step of theory development or theoretical analysis. You are developing a theoretical argument of why A should lead to C. Ideally there would be some measurable implications of this relationship which you could collect primary data on to test your theory.