Topics Covered
Meaning, Types and Characteristics of Research
Positivism and Post-positivism
Experimental, Descriptive and Historical Methods
Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
Steps of Research
Thesis and Article Writing
Styles of Referencing
ICT in Research
Research Ethics
Contents
- 1. Research: Meaning, Types and Characteristics
- 2. Positivism and the Post-positivistic Approach
- 3. Methods of Research: Experimental, Descriptive, Historical
- 4. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
- 5. Steps of Research
- 6. Thesis and Article Writing: Format and Styles of Referencing
- 7. Application of ICT in Research
- 8. Research Ethics
Topic Overview — What & Why
Unit II tests whether you could plan and report a study properly. The questions ask you to name the type of a described study, order the steps of research, pick the right design or sample, recognise a referencing style, and judge what is ethical.
- Research is systematic, objective inquiry that adds to knowledge; it is fundamental, applied or action research, among other types.
- Positivism holds that knowledge comes from observation and measurement; post-positivism keeps the method but admits that every finding is provisional.
- Methods: experimental (cause and effect, by manipulation), descriptive (what is), historical (what was), each qualitative or quantitative.
- Writing: a thesis and an article have set parts; references follow a named style such as APA or MLA.
- Ethics: consent, confidentiality, honesty in data, and no plagiarism; the UGC's 2018 regulations set levels of plagiarism and penalties.
1. Research: Meaning, Types and Characteristics
Research is a systematic, controlled and critical inquiry into a question, using evidence, that produces new knowledge or tests existing knowledge. The word comes from the French recherche, "to search again".
Characteristics
- Systematic: it follows a planned sequence of steps.
- Empirical: it rests on evidence gathered from observation or experiment.
- Objective: its findings do not depend on who did it; it guards against bias.
- Logical: its conclusions follow from its evidence, by induction or deduction.
- Replicable: another researcher, following the same method, should reach the same result.
- Critical and cumulative: it questions what is known and builds on earlier work.
Types
| Basis | Types |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Fundamental (pure, basic): to extend knowledge or build theory. Applied: to solve a practical problem. Action research: by practitioners, to improve their own practice, in cycles of plan–act–observe–reflect |
| Aim | Exploratory (to find out what the problem is), descriptive (to describe it), explanatory or analytical (to explain why) |
| Data | Quantitative (numbers, measurement) and qualitative (words, meanings); mixed methods uses both |
| Time | Cross-sectional (one point in time) and longitudinal (the same units over time) |
| Setting | Laboratory, field, and library or documentary research |
| Nature | Conceptual (ideas and theories) and empirical (observation and experiment) |
Action research is credited to Kurt Lewin (1940s); Stephen Corey took it into education in the 1950s.
EXAMPLE 1
A teacher finds her students do badly at interpreting graphs, tries a new weekly exercise, measures the change, and revises the exercise for the next term. That is action research: by the practitioner, to improve her own practice, in a cycle.
EXAMPLE 2
A study tests whether a new theory of consumer choice holds, with no application in view. That is fundamental research. A study to cut waiting time at one hospital's outpatient desk is applied research.
2. Positivism and the Post-positivistic Approach
| Positivism | Post-positivism | |
|---|---|---|
| Associated with | Auguste Comte; the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle | Karl Popper (falsification); critical realism |
| Reality | Exists independently and can be known directly | Exists independently but can only be known imperfectly |
| Knowledge | Certain, from observation and measurement | Provisional; a theory is never proved, only not yet refuted |
| Method | Scientific method, hypotheses tested, quantitative, value-free | The same methods, plus several measures and methods to reduce error (triangulation) |
Against both stands interpretivism (or constructivism): reality is constructed by people, so research seeks meanings and understanding (Max Weber's Verstehen), usually by qualitative methods.
- Popper's falsification: a scientific statement must be capable of being shown false. "All swans are white" can be falsified by one black swan; no number of white swans proves it.
- Deduction reasons from theory to a hypothesis to be tested (positivist); induction reasons from observations to a general statement.
EXAMPLE 1
A study measures the effect of class size on test scores in 200 schools and treats the result as a law. That is positivist. A study that reports the same effect with a confidence interval and calls it the best current estimate, open to revision, is post-positivist.
EXAMPLE 2
A researcher spends a year in a village interviewing women about what "a good school" means to them. That is interpretivist: it seeks the participants' meanings, not a measured effect.
3. Methods of Research: Experimental, Descriptive, Historical
Experimental
The researcher manipulates an independent variable, controls other variables, and observes the effect on a dependent variable. It is the only method that can establish cause and effect directly.
- Experimental group receives the treatment; the control group does not; random assignment makes the groups alike in everything else.
- Designs (Campbell and Stanley, 1963): pre-experimental (one group, no control), quasi-experimental (control group but no random assignment), and true experimental (random assignment and control).
- Internal validity: the effect really is due to the treatment. External validity: the result holds beyond the study's own subjects and setting.
- Threats to internal validity include history, maturation, testing, instrumentation, regression to the mean, selection and attrition.
Descriptive
It describes things as they are, without manipulating anything: surveys, case studies, correlational studies, developmental studies (growth over time), and observational studies. It can show association but not, by itself, cause.
Historical
It studies past events from records. Its evidence is judged by two tests:
- Primary sources are first-hand (original documents, eyewitness accounts, records); secondary sources report or interpret them.
- External criticism asks whether a document is genuine (authenticity: is it what it claims to be, from when it claims?). Internal criticism asks whether its content is credible (accuracy and meaning).
EXAMPLE 1
Sixty students are randomly split into two groups; one is taught with simulations, the other without; both sit the same test. That is a true experimental design. If two existing sections are used instead, without random assignment, it is quasi-experimental.
EXAMPLE 2
A researcher finds a letter said to be from 1857 and checks its paper, ink and handwriting: external criticism. She then checks whether its account matches other records of the event: internal criticism.
4. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
| Quantitative | Qualitative | |
|---|---|---|
| Data | Numbers, measurements, counts | Words, images, observations, meanings |
| Logic | Mainly deductive: test a hypothesis | Mainly inductive: build understanding from the data |
| Sample | Large, usually by probability sampling | Small, chosen purposively |
| Tools | Structured questionnaire, test, scale, experiment | In-depth interview, focus group, participant observation, documents |
| Analysis | Statistical | Thematic, content, narrative |
| Examples | Survey, experiment, correlational study | Ethnography, phenomenology, grounded theory, case study, narrative inquiry |
- Ethnography studies a culture or group from the inside, often by long participant observation.
- Phenomenology studies lived experience: what something is like for those who go through it.
- Grounded theory (Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, 1967) builds a theory from the data rather than testing one.
- Sampling: probability methods (simple random, stratified, systematic, cluster) give every unit a known chance of selection; non-probability methods (convenience, purposive, quota, snowball) do not. Snowball sampling, where each participant names others, suits hidden populations.
EXAMPLE 1
To estimate the share of colleges with a working library, survey a random sample of 400 colleges: quantitative. To understand why students stop using the library, interview 15 students at length: qualitative.
EXAMPLE 2
A study of people recovering from addiction recruits each participant through the one before. That is snowball sampling, used because no list of the population exists.
5. Steps of Research
- Identify and define the research problem.
- Review the literature: what is known, and where the gap is.
- Formulate objectives and hypotheses.
- Prepare the research design: method, variables, sample, tools.
- Choose the sample.
- Collect the data.
- Analyse the data.
- Test the hypotheses and interpret the results.
- Generalise and write the report.
A hypothesis is a testable statement of the expected relation between variables. The null hypothesis states no relation or no difference; the alternative states one. A directional hypothesis says which way the difference goes ("A is higher than B"). A good hypothesis is testable, specific, consistent with known facts, and stated before the data are seen.
Variables: the independent variable is the presumed cause; the dependent variable the effect; an extraneous variable affects the dependent variable but is not under study, and must be controlled; an intervening (mediating) variable carries the effect from one to the other.
EXAMPLE 1
A question lists: data collection, hypothesis, problem, literature review, design. The right order is problem → literature review → hypothesis → design → data collection.
EXAMPLE 2
In a study of the effect of study hours on marks, study hours is the independent variable and marks the dependent; prior ability is an extraneous variable that must be controlled, for instance by matching or by random assignment.
6. Thesis and Article Writing: Format and Styles of Referencing
The format of a thesis
- Preliminary pages: title page, declaration, certificate, acknowledgements, contents, lists of tables and figures, abstract.
- The text: introduction (the problem, its significance, objectives, hypotheses), review of literature, methodology, results (analysis), discussion, summary and conclusions with limitations and suggestions for further research.
- Reference material: references or bibliography, appendices (questionnaires, raw tables), and sometimes an index.
A research article usually follows IMRaD: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion, with a title, abstract and keywords before, and references after. An abstract states the problem, method, main result and conclusion in a short paragraph.
Styles of referencing
| Style | Used mainly in | In-text form |
|---|---|---|
| APA (American Psychological Association), 7th edition 2019 | Psychology, education, social sciences | Author–date: (Rao, 2019) |
| MLA (Modern Language Association), 9th edition 2021 | Languages, literature, humanities | Author–page: (Rao 45) |
| Chicago | History, humanities | Notes and bibliography (footnotes), or author–date |
| Harvard | Many disciplines | Author–date |
| Vancouver | Medicine, health sciences | Numbered in order of citation |
| IEEE | Engineering, computing | Numbered in square brackets: [1] |
- References list only the works cited; a bibliography may also list works consulted but not cited.
- Abbreviations: ibid. (the same source as the previous note), op. cit. (the work already cited), loc. cit. (the same place already cited), et al. (and others), sic (thus, as in the original, mistakes included), cf. (compare).
- Measures of a journal's or researcher's citations: the impact factor (Eugene Garfield), the h-index (Jorge Hirsch, 2005: h papers each cited at least h times) and Google Scholar's i10-index (papers with at least 10 citations).
EXAMPLE 1
"Rao, C. R. (1973). Linear statistical inference and its applications (2nd ed.). Wiley." is in APA form: author, year in brackets, title in italics in sentence case, publisher.
EXAMPLE 2
A researcher has six papers cited 25, 18, 9, 6, 4 and 2 times. Four papers are cited at least four times, but there are not five cited at least five times, so the h-index is 4. The i10-index is 2.
7. Application of ICT in Research
- Finding literature: databases and search engines (Google Scholar, JSTOR, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science); Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT to narrow or widen a search.
- Indian repositories and services (INFLIBNET): Shodhganga (a repository of Indian PhD theses), Shodhgangotri (synopses of research in progress), e-ShodhSindhu (a consortium giving access to e-journals and databases), Vidwan (a database of experts) and Shodh Shuddhi (plagiarism-detection software provided to universities).
- Managing references: Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote.
- Collecting data: online forms, e-surveys, mobile data collection.
- Analysing data: statistical software (SPSS, R, SAS, Stata, Excel) and qualitative software (NVivo, ATLAS.ti).
- Writing and sharing: word processors, LaTeX, online collaboration; open-access journals and repositories; persistent identifiers such as the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) for papers and ORCID for researchers.
EXAMPLE 1
A search for
"sampling" AND "agriculture" NOT "forestry" returns papers containing both of the first two terms and not the third. AND and NOT narrow a search; OR widens it.
EXAMPLE 2
A student wants to see the theses already submitted on rural credit in Indian universities before choosing a topic. Shodhganga is the place to look.
8. Research Ethics
- Informed consent: participants agree freely, knowing the purpose, procedure, risks and their right to withdraw.
- Confidentiality and anonymity: what participants say is protected; they cannot be identified in the report.
- No harm: physical, psychological or social; extra care for children and vulnerable groups.
- Honesty with data: the three serious kinds of misconduct are fabrication (making up data), falsification (changing data or results) and plagiarism (using another's work or ideas without credit).
- Authorship and credit: only those who contributed substantially are authors; others are acknowledged.
- Publication: avoid predatory journals (which charge fees to publish without real review); do not publish the same work twice.
Landmark codes: the Nuremberg Code (1947), the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki (1964) and the Belmont Report (1979), whose three principles are respect for persons, beneficence and justice.
The UGC's plagiarism regulations, 2018
The UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018 grade similarity in a student's thesis or dissertation, excluding the common knowledge, quotations and references the regulations allow:
| Level | Similarity | Penalty for a student |
|---|---|---|
| Level 0 | Up to 10% | Minor similarity; no penalty |
| Level 1 | Above 10% to 40% | Submit a revised script within a set time (up to six months) |
| Level 2 | Above 40% to 60% | Debarred from submitting a revised script for one year |
| Level 3 | Above 60% | Registration for the programme cancelled |
EXAMPLE 1
A researcher drops three survey responses because they weaken her result, and does not say so. That is falsification, even though nothing was invented.
EXAMPLE 2
A thesis shows 35% similarity after the allowed exclusions. Under the 2018 regulations that is Level 1: the student must submit a revised script.
Exam pointers for Unit II.
- Action research — Kurt Lewin; by practitioners, to improve their own practice.
- Positivism — Comte; falsification — Popper; grounded theory — Glaser and Strauss.
- Only the experimental method establishes cause directly; random assignment is what makes it true-experimental.
- External criticism: is the document genuine? Internal criticism: is its content credible?
- APA author–date; MLA author–page; Vancouver and IEEE numbered.
- Shodhganga for theses; Shodh Shuddhi for plagiarism checks; Level 0 is up to 10%.
Final Revision Checklist
- Characteristics and types of research, by purpose, aim, data, time and setting.
- Positivism, post-positivism and interpretivism; induction and deduction.
- Experimental designs and validity; descriptive and historical methods; primary and secondary sources.
- Qualitative against quantitative; the main qualitative approaches; probability and non-probability sampling.
- The steps of research; hypotheses and kinds of variable.
- The parts of a thesis and of an article; referencing styles and abbreviations; h-index.
- INFLIBNET services; reference managers; analysis software.
- Consent, confidentiality, FFP misconduct, the landmark codes, and the UGC 2018 plagiarism levels.
Sources
- University Grants Commission (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018, Gazette of India, 23 July 2018: ugc.gov.in.
- INFLIBNET Centre: Shodhganga, Shodhgangotri, e-ShodhSindhu, Vidwan, Shodh Shuddhi: inflibnet.ac.in.
- The Belmont Report (1979): hhs.gov; the Declaration of Helsinki: wma.net.
- D. T. Campbell and J. C. Stanley, Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research (1963).
- B. G. Glaser and A. L. Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967); J. E. Hirsch, "An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output" (2005).
- Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition (2019); MLA Handbook, 9th edition (2021).