What is Research?
Research in common parlance refers to a search for knowledge. One also can define research as a scientific and systematic search for pertinent information of a specific topic. In fact, research is an art of scientific investigation. The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English lays down the meaning of research as “a careful investigation or inquiry especially through search for new facts in any branch of knowledge.”
Redman and Mory define research as a “systematized effort to gain new knowledge.” Some people consider research as a movement, a movement from the known to the unknown. It is a voyage of discovery. We all possess the vital instinct of inquisitiveness for, when the unknown confronts us, we wonder, and our inquisitiveness makes us probe and attain full and fuller understanding of the unknown. This inquisitiveness is the mother of all knowledge and the method, which man employs for obtaining the knowledge of whatever the unknown, can be termed as research.
Research is an academic activity and as such the term should be used in a technical sense. According to Clifford Woody research comprises defining and redefining problems, formulating hypothesis or suggested solutions; collecting, organising and evaluating data; making deductions and reaching conclusions; and at last carefully testing the conclusions to determine whether they fit the formulating hypothesis. D. Slesinger and M. Stephenson in the Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences define research as “the manipulation of things, concepts or symbols for the purpose of generalising to extend, correct or verify knowledge, whether that knowledge aids in construction of theory or in the practice of an art.” Research is, thus, an original contribution to the existing stock of knowledge making for its advancement. It is the pursuit of truth with the help of study, observation, comparison and experiment. In short, the search for knowledge through objective and systematic method of finding solution to a problem is research. The systematic approach concerning generalisation and the formulation of a theory is also research. As such the term ‘research’ refers to the systematic method consisting of enunciating the problem, formulating a hypothesis, collecting the facts or data, analysing the facts and reaching certain conclusions either in the form of solutions(s) towards the concerned problem or in certain generalisations for some theoretical formulation.
OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH
The purpose of research is to discover answers to questions through the application of scientific procedures. The main aim of research is to find out the truth which is hidden, and which has not been discovered yet. Though each research study has its own specific purpose, we may think of research objectives as falling into several following broad groupings:
- To gain familiarity with a phenomenon or to achieve new insights into it (studies with this object in view are termed as exploratory or formulative research studies);
- To portray accurately the characteristics of a individual, situation or a group (studies with this object in view are known as descriptive research studies);
- To determine the frequency with which something occurs or with which it is associated with something else (studies with this object in view are known as diagnostic research studies);
- To test a hypothesis of a causal relationship between variables (such studies are known as hypothesis-testing research studies).
MOTIVATION IN RESEARCH
What makes people to undertake research? This is a question of fundamental importance. The possible motives for doing research may be either one or more of the followings:
- Desire to get a research degree along with its consequential benefits;
- Desire to face the challenge in solving the unsolved problems, i.e., concern over practical problems initiates research;
- Desire to get intellectual joy of doing some creative work;
- Desire to be of service to society;
- Desire to get respectability.
However, this is not an exhaustive list of factors motivating people to undertake research studies. Many more factors such as directives of government, employment conditions, curiosity about new things, desire to understand causal relationships, social thinking and awakening, and the like may as well motivate (or at times compel) people to perform research operations.
