Research Methodology - Objectives and Motivation of research

Research is common parlance refers to a research for knowledge. Once can also define research as a scientific and systematic search for pertinent information on a specific topic. In fact, research is an art of scientific investigation. The advanced Learner’s Dictionary of current English lays down the meaning of research as a “careful investigation or inquiry specially through search for new facts in any branch of knowledge”. Redman and Mory define research as a “Systematized efforts to gain new knowledge” some people considered research as a movement, a movement from the known to the unknown. It is actually a voyage of discovery. We all possess the vital instinct of inquisitiveness for when the unknown conforms us we wonder and our inquisitiveness make us probe and attain full and fuller understanding of the unknown. This inquisitiveness is the mother of all knowledge and the mother which man employs for obtaining the knowledge of whatever the unknown, can be termed as research.

Research is an academic activity and as such the term should be used in a technical sense. According to Clifford Woody research comprises defining and redefining problems, formulating hypothesis or suggested solutions; collecting, organizing and evaluating data; making deductions and reaching conclusions; and at last carefully testing the conclusions to determine whether they fit the formulating hypothesis.

Objectives of Research:

The purpose of research is to discover answers to questions through the application of scientific procedures. The main aim of research is to find out the truth which is hidden and which has not been discovered as yet. Though each research study has its own specific purpose, we may think of research objectives as falling into a number of following broad groupings:

1. To gain familiarity with a phenomenon or to achieve new insights into it

2. To portray accurately the characteristics of a particular individual, situation or a group

3. To determine the frequency with which something occurs or with which it is associated with something else

4. To test a hypothesis of a causal relationship between variables.

Motivation in Research

What makes people to undertake research? This is a question of fundamental importance. The possible motives for doing research may be either one or more of the following:

1. Desire to get a research degree along with its consequential benefits;

2. Desire to face the challenge in solving the unsolved problems, i.e., concern over practical problems initiates research;

3. Desire to get intellectual joy of doing some creative work;

4. Desire to be of service to society;

5. Desire to get respectability.

However, this is not an exhaustive list of factors motivating people to undertake research studies. Many more factors such as directives of government, employment conditions, curiosity about new things, desire to understand causal relationships, social thinking and awakening, and the like may as well motivate (or at times compel) people to perform research operations.

Reference:

Kothari, C.K. (2006), Research Methodology, Prentice-Hall of India (P) Limited, New Delhi.