Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Magnitude: you should have sufficient knowledge about the research process to be able to
visualize the work involved in completing the proposed topic.
Expertise: make sure you have an adequate level of expertise for the task you are
proposing.
Data availability: if your topic requires collection of information from different sources
Generating research ideas
Useful Techniques
• Rational thinking
• Creative thinking
• Searching the literature
• Scanning the media
• Brainstorming
• Relevance Trees
• Exploring past projects
• Discussion
• Keeping an ideas on notebook
Research Problem
• If there is no problem there is no solution
• A research problem is a question that researcher wants to answer or a problem that a
researcher wants to solve.
• A Perceived gap between what is and what should be.
• A reason of dissatisfaction
Cont’d…
1. Observation
2. Literature reviews
3. Professional conferences
4. Experts
5. Previous experience
6. Day to day experience
Steps in problem formulation
1. Identify the Broad Study Area
2. Dissect the Broad Study Area into Subareas
3. Review literature and the exploratory study
4. Selection of research area
5. Delimiting the research topic
6. Evaluating the research problem
7. Formulating the final statement of problem
8. Raise Research Questions
Conducting the literature review
• After obtaining a broad area for research the researcher needs to review the literature.
• Literature is reviewed to know what has already been done in this selected area of
research.
• To ensure that you're not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address.
• Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing
research and what new insights it will contribute.
Identify Resources
academic journals,
conference proceedings,
dissertations,
government report,
policy report,
Internet,
books, and
newsletters.
Assignment 1:
• Purpose of a Literature Review
• Why write Literature Review?
• How to review a literature?
Setting research questions, objectives, and hypotheses
• The overall purpose of the study, should be clearly and concisely defined.
1. Editing: First, the data collection forms must be scanned to be sure that they are complete
and consistent. This process is called editing.
2. Coding: Coding involves assigning numbers to each of the answers so that they can be
analyzed.
3. Tabulation: The final step in analyzing data is tabulation, the orderly arrangement of data
in a table or other summary format achieved by counting the frequency of responses to
each question.
Reporting Research Findings/results
• The end goal of a scientific study is to interpret the results and draw
conclusions.
• There are various forms of research reports: term papers, dissertations,
journal articles, papers for presentation at professional conferences
and seminars, books, and so on.
• The results of a research investigation prepared in any form are of
little utility if they are not communicated to others.
• The dissemination may be made through a conference, a seminar, a
report, or an oral or poster presentation.
Thank you