Exploratory blockmodeling is an (inductive) approach (or a group of approaches) in blockmodeling regarding the specification of an ideal blockmodel.[1]: 234 This approach, also known as hypotheses-generating, is the simplest approach, as it "merely involves the definition of the block types permitted as well as of the number of clusters."[2] With this approach, researcher usually defines the best possible blockmodel, which then represent the base for the analysis of the whole network.[3]
This approach is usually based on:[4]: 284
The opposite approach is called a confirmatory blockmodeling.