Confirmatory study

A confirmatory study is done for testing, thus confirming, one or more research hypotheses. Confirmatory studies normally use inferential statistics as an inherent part of confirming hypotheses (although inferential statistics can also be used in an exploratory manner.

Another type of confirmatory study is a replication, or a replicatory study. The main difference is that whereby a confirmatory study aims to 'test' a research hypothesis to observe if it holds true, a replication aims to 'replicate' the results of a previous research by using a similar methodology.

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Exploratory study: This type of study is used to 'explore' new fields of knowledge.
Replicatory study: This type of study is used to 'replicate' the results of previous research.