Key Issues in Research Methodology

Key issues in research
methodology.
What is research and what makes a good research question? How to
work with criticism?
What do you understand by research?
• Research is a systematic inquiry that helps to make sense of the
world. It helps to make sense of all the debates and interpretations
that we have of issues of contemporary significance. Line systematic
inquiry.
• It's not reading a lot of books and finding a lot of facts which gets us
to a research question. Which is the place to begin research because
it helps to orient everything you do. And helps to select what goes in,
what goes out, what's pertinent, what's relevant.
What constitutes a good research question?
Three attributes
• A research question has to:
1. address something of significance. Some issue, problem, puzzle
question, that relates to the interests of a broad community of scholars.
It arises in the real world or arises in the context of the sort of theories
and frameworks that we are always endeavoring to develop in order to
understand the real world.
2. be researchable. Something that you can answer by doing research.
That would let out metaphysical questions. Or questions that are so
broadly formulated one wouldn't know where to look. Or what sort of
information to gather that would enable us to, to give a systematic,
systematically researched answer to it.
What constitutes a good research question?
Three attributes
3. address a question that hasn't been definitively answered. There
are plenty of questions that are definitively answered because there's a
consensus about the answer to the extent that it seems to be
commonly understood what the answer of a particular question is. Of
course, you can always find that the answer needs to be rethought in
light of trends that change or contemporary events or processes. But
that's really an important attribute of a good research question
because what we're trying to do is to produce knowledge that is
cumulative.
Summary
• Do you want to reinvent the wheel?
• Do you want to simply faithfully render what other people have written?
• That's not research. That's kind of an essay where you sort of inventory
points of view and then say which one you, you prefer and why.
• Research is asking and answering a question, and it should be a question
that you can show is not definitively answered. There's still something
that, more that can be done. Something that can strengthen existing
answers. Perhaps taking existing answers and applying them to a
different context or set of cases.
Literature Review
• What do you think about the points of doing a literature review, and the
values of a good literature review?
• A roundtable discussion of the states of issue that you're interested in. The
one that's flowing out of your research question. Listening to other people's
point of view is one part of a literature review. Understanding where the
different people around the table and their point of view.
• Equally, what one needs to be, mindful of to make a real contribution is your
own question. And in this sense the research question and literature review
are intimately related.
• LR is not merely knowing what else is going on in the conversation, but
being able to articulate and formulate your own point of view.
Literature Review
• A literature review is the back story, or the setting for your story that
you want to tell. You have to prove to the reader, and also for yourself,
and your examiners that there is a gap and you need to show where
the gap is and then you fill in a bit of the gap as your contribution. It's
the same with the movie if you will.
• From a practical point of view for, for students undertaking
dissertations or something like that, the research the You know your
stuff, you've read all tliterary review also shows that you have
researched your field with insight.he main authors in the area. You've
looked at the key debates and the key ideas. And you can convince
someone about this issue.
Literature Review
• Understand the debates that you're going to be entering into. As well
as sort of framing how other people have approached the question or
topic that you're going to answer and see if maybe your approach or
your methodology might be one that's slightly different that could
add to the understanding of any given topic. Because it's where you,
pull a chair up to a table. And engage with those notable scholars,
researchers and writers who have addressed your question.
Literature Review
• All academic research is essentially about having an ongoing
conversation with scholars around the globe who are working on the
same issues. A good literature review, the value of it is that it ensures
that one can have the conversation meaningfully. That is to say, that
one has a deep enough understanding of other's work, vis-à-vis the
particular research area or question. And can therefore engage with
them critically and robustly. Without that you cannot pretend or know
how to claim, to move your field forward or make a contribution.

Key Issues in Research Methodology

Uploaded by

Key Issues in Research Methodology

Uploaded by

Key issues in research

You might also like