The Nature Of Research

Research is a systematic process of active inquiry and discovery through collecting, analyzing, and inferring from data so that we can understand a given phenomenon in which we are interested. Research is wondering about the world around within us, developing ways in which to address such wonderings, and adding to the body of knowledge we believe we have. It is about questioning the veracity of this knowledge, evaluating it in multiple arenas, even reorganizing it to develop novel understanding and applications. 

Scientific research is the application of the scientific approach to studying a problem. It is a way to acquire dependable and useful information. To be classified as scientific research, an investigation must involve the approach we described in previous sections. Scientific research is universally a systematic and objective search reliable knowledge. 

Educational research is the application of the scientific approach to the study of educational problems. Educational research is the way in which people acquire dependable and useful information about the educative process. 

The nature of research compared therefore with some of the other ways of knowing. Those are; sensory experience, agreement with other, expert opinion, logic and the science method.  We also know type of research, all of us engage in action that have some of the characteristic of formal research, although perhaps we do not realize this at the time. We try out new method of teaching, new materials, new textbooks. The term research can mean any short of “careful, systematic, patient study and investigation in some field of knowledge, undertaken to discover or establish facts and principles”. In scientific research, the emphasis is on obtaining evidence to support or refute proposed facts or principles. Experimental research: is the most conclusive of scientific methods.  

Research as we mean is not simply summarizing what other have done. Many undergraduate students write research papers for their classes. We read research manuscripts every day and for some of them we sit back and state. That’s really a beautiful study.