Before one embarks on the journey of Research, one has to understand the reason for conducting research. A Student would do as part of degree assessment, a Business would do it for solving a problem or to establish certain relationships like the relationship of training with job satisfaction, to relate organizational culture with motivation at work or research could very well be carried out to find out how one would attain a particular business state.
How to Start a Research?
Before one embarks on the journey of Research, one has to understand the reason for conducting research. A Student would do as part of degree assessment, a Business would do it for solving a problem or to establish certain relationships like the relationship of training with job satisfaction, to relate organizational culture with motivation at work or research could very well be carried out to find out how one would attain a particular business state.
Get Grip on the Area
The first and foremost thing of interest in research is to identify the area for research. Consider for Example Human Resources, one could take Learning, Training, Career, Culture, Organisational Structure. Any off the above could serve a potential areas for Research.
Head to the Library
Once the potential area of research is selected, the next step is heading to the resource/Body of Knowledge in search of previous researches in the area. Best way would be too look for Journals in the intended area of research, for example if one intends to work in the area of Learning, he could look in the Learning and Development Journal, This would help see potential topics in which research has already been carried out, this helping the researcher narrow down the research to a particular topic.
Things to Consider while reading Journals
Journal Papers are normally concise. and it would be difficult for a new researcher to grasp the meaning in detail right from the word go. Important while reading research papers is to read them and understand whatever bits you could understand, and reading it a number of times would definitely help, it always a good idea to read the Abstract before going into the details.
Try to Grasp the Following
While one is reading a Journal he/she should try to grasp the following pieces of information:
- The main Objective of the Research
- The methods of analysis used
- The data required
- The findings of the Research
It always a good idea to make note of the following as one gets to know the details from the research paper.
Formulate Your Title
While reading the research papers make note of their titles with their findings, Once you have read a few research papers and have made notes on their finding, try formulating Title for your research, its always a good idea to formulate 3 - 4 research titles as they will offer a choice of selection while discussion with the supervisor.
Detailed Study
Once the title is formulated the next step is critical, it involves making detailed study of the previous body of knowledge on the title, to get hold of the previous researches one could directly go to the journals and search them, another easier way would be through the bibliography of the research papers, taking out the research papers that directly relate to the title researcher has selected for his/her research.
Make Notes
Having hold of the different research papers, reading them would help identify key dependent and independent variables and their relationship in the study. Finally this would help formulating Research Framework. It is important that notes are taken while research papers are read. These notes would be a key part of the literature review and data analysis, helping in analyzing the results of the researcher with the previous researches. While making notes consideration shall be given to following
- Objective of the Research
- Research Methodology
- Research Sample
- Research Framework
- How and What tools and methods were used for analysis of data.
- Research Findings
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