Research Methodology Courses

What is Research?

Research is the process of collecting information about a particular subject through a meticulous search. It is the experimentation or investigation intended to find and understand facts and review accepted theories or laws in the context of new facts or real-world applications.

In other words, research is a unique and systematic exploration to enhance existing knowledge and establish principles and facts. Many people consider research as an expedition of innovation of new knowledge.

Without a proper research methodology, you can’t effectively accomplish your research. Research methodology is a systematic and creative method adopted to enhance the stock of knowledge. It involves the assortment, organisation, and investigation of information to enhance the understanding of a topic. A research methodology may be used in those research projects that aim to expand past work in the field. It may also be used to test the legitimacy of experiments, instruments, or procedures.

The fundamentals of research methodology serve as a vital source for offering norms or guidelines for solving problems in different industries. It is an assortment of formal research methodology training that helps you understand the new developments going on in a particular field. For example, pursuing a research methodology course in social sciences trains you to conduct extensive research and try to uplift society's social standards.

A research methodology always begins with a research problem or question. This is the first step that defines the statement of an issue or the area of concern. This research problem should be tested or discovered; it must not be too detailed or vague. With this problem statement, you can determine the objectives of the research.

Determining the research objective is one of the key facets of research methodology. The research objectives describe the research intention to discover something. From these objectives, the researchers form a hypothesis (the prediction or assumption or prediction tested by the research). The remaining part of the research is carried out to either support or discredit the hypothesis.

From various research methodology courses available, you can begin with a basic research methodology course to learn how to conduct research. The courses also impart training on various techniques, types of research, the most suitable research method based on the problem statement, etc.

The fundamentals of research methodology involve understanding the characteristics of research. These characteristics define how the research should be.

• Controlled-

The research must be controlled because the relation between two or more variables is impacted by each other. In this context, the variables can be internal or external). It can’t design a specific research report if the research is uncontrollable.

• Systematic-

Organised research makes it easy to obtain the required information. The researchers can’t evaluate or obtain the relevant information if it's not systematic. Various steps are involved in conducting a systematic research process. All the contained steps of the processes are interconnected.

The plan must be free from any loopholes. It should begin with a problem or question that needs to be resolved step-by-step.

• Rigorous-

The research should be rigorous because it assists you in following the exact procedures to discover the answers related to relevant questions. Usually, the research information comprises two types of sciences: social sciences and physical science. Irrespective of the information contained, the research should be carried out exhaustively.Pursuing a basic research methodology course can familiarise you with how to conduct rigorous research on a topic.

• Valid-

It implies that information amassed by the researcher must be accurate and verified by them. If the collected information is valid, the research will be ethical in nature. The fundamental objective of every research is to conduct the research legally and reliably. Moreover, the techniques and procedures must be well tested. They must be pertinent to the research topic.

• Empirical-

In research methodology, any conclusion is entirely based on ethical or hard evidence gathered from observations and practical experiences.

• Replicable-

It means that there must be scope to validate the findings of previous research. Somebody can validate your conducted research in a new environment with a new group of subjects or at some different time.

The fundamental objective of a research is to collect evidence for theories and contribute to enhancing knowledge in a particular field of study. With a clearly defined objective, researchers can know how to begin and go through each research methodology step. Ultimately, this helps them come up with valuable findings about the topic under study.

A clearly defined research objective helps you choose the best research methodology training methods. When you pursue a basic course in research methodology, the first step involves how to define research objectives

Types of Research Objectives:

• General Objective
• Specific Objectives
• Ultimate Objective
• Immediate Objectives
• 1. General Objective:
  The general objective of a study mentions the expectations to be achieved from the proposed study in general ter
• 2. Specific Objectives:
  Considering that the general objectives are correctly stated, it is logical to categorise them into various smaller, logically linked parts. They are usually referred to as specific objectives
• 3. Ultimate Objective
  It emphasises how the results will be used to encourage policymakers and program managers to implement the recommendations from the survey results
• 4. Immediate Objectives:
  These objectives specify the focus of the proposed research in a behavioural context.

You can understand all major types of research while continuing the basic course in research methodology. The types of research are explained below:

1. Fundamental research:

Also called basic research, it intends to help researchers better understand certain phenomena from a practical viewpoint. It focuses on how things work. This research aims to expand your understanding using scientific explanations and theories. For example, fundamental research can entail a company’s study of how various product placements impact product sales.

2. Qualitative research:

It covers non-numerical data like literature and opinions. The examples include:

• Surveys
• Focus groups
• Observations
• Participant comments
• Interviews

3. Quantitative research:

It uses fundamental research methodology and statistics, numerical data, and measurements. For example, an automobile manufacturer may compare the number of car sales to bikes.

4. Mixed research:

It incorporates both quantitative and qualitative data.

Questions like to what extent does the frequency of births (quantitative) reflects the citizen’s perception of birth rate (qualitative) in India? are an example of mixed research methods.

5. Applied research:

It identifies solutions to specific problems or discovers answers to specific questions.

Some of the examples of Applied research are as follows:

• Studies to decrease cyber crime rates.
• Studies to depict pay gap in the workforce.

6. Longitudinal research:

It investigates how certain measurements change with respect to time without influencing any variables.

A two year long study depicting a children learning to speak would be an example of longitudinal research.

7. Exploratory research:

It investigates what is already acknowledged about a topic and what extra information may be relevant.

A study into the role of technology as an effective financial tool is an example of exploratory research.

8. Cross-sectional research:

It studies a group or subgroup at a specific point in time.

A medical study examining the genetic disorders amongst the defined population.

9. Laboratory research:

It is conducted in a controlled laboratory setting.

• A research undertaken to discover vaccine or medicine that can cure Covid’s affect in a human body.

10. Field research:

Field research is conducted wherever the subjects or participants are “on location".

Researchers findings to understand the pollution’s effect on the flora and fauna of the ecosystem.

11. Flexible research:

It permits procedures to change during the experiment.

12. Fixed research:

It uses experiment procedures that are accurately determined ahead of time. A few examples of experiment procedures it uses are the frequency of testing, the place of testing, types of subjects, and the number of subjects.

• A researcher wants to know how different e- commerce platforms affects the consumers behaviour of shopping

13. Action research:

It involves the process of investigating your actions, evaluating their effectiveness in providing the anticipated outcome, and selecting a course of action depending on your outcomes.

• Using structured or semi-structured interviews of the tea sellers to investigate affect of Covid on their business.

14. Classification research:

It identifies and classifies individual elements of a group into bigger groups or subgroups.

• The categorisation of the demography into gender, age, location in order to predict the buying behaviour.

15. Policy research:

It helps you to observe the effects of the current government or social policies or foresee the potential effects of the proposed policies.

• The research on the automobile safety, abortion, air pollution would be the example of policy research.

16. Comparative research:

It identifies similarities and dissimilarities between two subjects, individuals, or groups.

• The gender ratio in the tech field.

17. Inductive research:

Also called theory-building research, it helps you to collect data that may help evolve a new theory about a phenomenon or process.

• The cats here are all white. All cats I have ever seen are white.

18. Deductive research:

Also known as theory-testing, deductive research is the opposite of inductive research. Its focus transits from the broad to the specific.

• (A=B) → All dolphins are mammals.
• (B=c) → All mammals have heart.
• (A=C) → All dolphins have a heart.

19. Causal research:

Also known as explanatory research, it determines cause and effect relationships between the stated variables.

The government initiates mid- day meal in selective schools. The observation comes that the attendance has increased with the onset of it. After they initiate the mid- day meal service in more number of schools and receive the identical results, they conclude that the mid- day meal and attendance increase has the causal relationship.