Research Methodology

for Research in English

by

Dr. Abha Pandey

Professor & Head, Department of English
Govt. Mahakoshal College, Jabalpur, MP

‘All progress is born out of inquiry.

Doubt is often better than over
confidence for it leads to inquiry, and
inquiry leads to invention”

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 Research Methodology:
An Introduction
• Meaning of Research
• Objectives
• Types of Research
• Research Approaches
• Significance of Research
• Research Methods
• Research Process

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 Research
• Meaning : To seek again. French word chercher, Latin
circare meant to go about, English word search means
to survey inquiringly or to examine/ enquire closely
• Features: Academic and intellectual work
– Systematic and critical investigation in the field of
knowledge to establish facts or principles.
– A fresh approach to a subject or interpretation of facts.
– Revision of accepted laws or theories in the light of
discovery of new facts.
– Practical application of new or revised conclusions or
theories or laws.

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 Objectives of Literary Research
• To acquire and advance knowledge and abilities
works through intensive study of the original
texts of selected literary works.
• To apply the concerned literary theory or concept
to the selected literary works.
• To analyse and discuss literary works concerned
and have a thorough understanding of the
literary creativity, literary criticism and literary
research methods.
• To develop new theories, concepts or tools, for
study of unknown phenomena.
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 Types of Research
• Descriptive vs. Analytical
• Fundamental/Applied
• Basic/Pure purpose/ Process outcome
• Quantitative vs. Qualitative
• Explorative/ Formulative
• Conceptual / Empirical
• Applied/ Action Vs Fundamental/
• Comparative/ Longitudinal
• Diagnostic

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 Literary Research
• Literature different from social sciences
• Product of the creative writer
• Literary research cannot confine itself to the
study of literary text or the writer, it has to study
both.
• When the object of study is the writer the tools
applied are similar to those used in social
sciences, for his works the tools are specific to
the purpose.
• Types: Biographical, Bibliography and textual
criticism, Theoretical and Interpretative.
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 Significance of Research
• Research is significant for careerism,
professional development, source of
livelihood for youth.
• Outlet for ideas, insights and philosophies for
philosophers and thinkers.
• Development of new styles and creative work;
to generate new theories for literary man.

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 Research Methods
• Research Methods constitute a part of
research methodology. The scope of research
methodology is wider than that of research
methods.
• Research methodology is a way to
systematically solve the research problem. It is
the logic behind the methods we use in the
context of our research and explain:
– Why , how , in what way, what data, why a
particular technique of analysing the data has
been used etc. 8
 Research Process
Formulate
Review Related
Research Problem Review previous
Literature Concepts
Select Research research findings
and theories
topic

Formulate Design Research Collect Data

Hypotheses including sample Execution

Analyze data
Interpret Data Write a Report
Test hypotheses

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Formulating the research problem
• A thesis needs to be “original and a genuine
contribution of knowledge ”; it may be “a
fresh interpretation of the known facts” and
/or “discovery of new facts”
• Two steps are involved: understanding the
problem thoroughly and rephrasing it in a
meaningful way.
– Study of a few standard critical studies
– Narrowing the topic to specificity

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 Selecting the Research Topic
• General area of interest of a subject matter
• Initially state the problem in a broad general way-
resolve the ambiguities if any.
• Check feasibility- Rephrase the topic analytically
• Examine available literature to get acquainted with the
selected problem.
– Conceptual literature- concepts and theories
– Empirical literature- studies made earlier
• Outcome of overview of literature is to enable the
researcher to specify his own problem.

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 Review of Literature
Define and limit the problem. Consult the source
material and collect information.
Source : Abstracting journal, indexing journals,
published or unpublished bibliographies,
anthologies, academic journals, conference
proceedings.
Primary sources
Secondary sources

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 Formulating a Hypothesis
• Develop a working hypothesis.
• Make tentative assumptions and in order to
draw certain conclusions.
• The role of hypothesis is to keep the
researcher on the right track.
• It helps to focus on important aspects of the
problem and determine the data collecting
methods.

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 Research Design
• Objective- purpose- what, why, where.
• Audience
• Kind of information-type of data
• Source of information- sample design
• Data analysis
• Style of preparing the report.

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 Research Approach
• For quantitative data the analysis will be
quantitative. Data collection is done by
– Inferential method : survey method
– simulation method- construction of an artificial
environment
• Qualitative approach is used for subjective
assessment of attitude, opinion and behaviour
– Interview, focus group, projective techniques are
used as method for data collection.

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 Literary Approach
• Wilbur Scott edited an anthology of modern
critical texts and divided them into five broad
groups.
– Moral approach
– Psychological approach
– Formalistic approach
– Archetypal approach
– Sociological approach

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 Literary Approach
• William J Handy and Max Westbrook divided
criticism into 6 broad groups
– Formalist Criticism
– Genre Criticism
– Archetypal Criticism
– Psychoanalytic Criticism
– Historical Criticism
– Interdisciplinary Criticism

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Data collection for literary studies
Primary data:
Works of the author/s, autobiography,
Interviews, articles in newspapers,
magazine, letters
Data collected through surveys, interviews
etc.
Secondary data:
Articles in journals, books, critical books on
the author, magazines, e-articles, websites.
Literary theories.

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 Processing and Analysis of Data
• Data Interpretation
• Evaluating: Editing to improve the quality of
data.
• Coding : Symbols to categorize the data.
• Tabulation
• Statisitical calculations.
• Interpreting data.

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 Hypothesis Testing
• Do the facts support the formulated
hypothesis.
• Generalising and interpretations
• Build a theory/ in case of no hypothesis the
researcher may seek to explain his finding on
the basis of some theory.

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 Preparation of the Report
• Title
• Certificates
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Table of Contents
• Report: Introduction, Chapters, Conclusion
• Appendices: Bibliography, Graphs Charts etc.

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 Bibliography
• Bajpai, S.R. (2008), Methods of Social Survey and
Research, Kitab Ghar, Kanpur.
• Das, Sanat. (2012), Research Methodology, Jaipur:
Yking Books.
• Mishra, R.P. (2002), Research Methodology, New Delhi:
Cocept Publishing Company
• Sahu, N K and Dilip K Swain (2013), Research
Methodology, New Delhi: SSDN Publishers
• Kothari, C R (1991), New Delhi: Willy Eastern Limited
• Seth, Kalpana (2010), Research Methodology in English.
New Delhi: MurariLal & Sons
• Janes, J. (2001), Survey Research Design”, Library Hi-
tech, Vol.19 no. 4, p 419-421.

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Enjoy Nature Go for a leave

Thank You 23