One purpose of ________ research is to gather preliminary information that will help divide a broad research problem into small problems for subsequent research.

A) causal
B) experimental
C) descriptive
D) exploratory

Exploratory research is conducted when there is limited information or knowledge about a research problem. It helps in identifying the important variables and their relationships, uncovering new insights and defining the research problem. The main goal of exploratory research is to gather sufficient preliminary information that will help in division of the research problem into small problems for subsequent research. Therefore, option D is the correct answer. The other options, such as causal and experimental research, are aimed at determining cause-effect relationships among variables, while descriptive research is used to describe the characteristics of a population or phenomenon.