Whether we are aware of it or not, we are surrounded by social research. For instead educators, administrators, government officials, business leaders, human service providers, and health care professionals regularly use social research findings and principles in their jobs. We will learn most of what we know about the social world by an alternative social research. A great deal of what we know about the social world is based on what our parents and other have told us. We also have knowledge that we learn from our personal experience. So, there are many way that we learn about the research.
Research in common mean is refers to a search for knowledge. But 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. Research is an academic activity and as such the term should be used in a technical sense.
Objective 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 (studies with this object in view are termed as exploratory or formularize research studies);
2. To portray accurately the characteristics of a particular individual, situation or a group (studies with this object in view are known as descriptive research studies);
3. To determine the frequency with which something occurs or with which it is associated with something else (studies with this object in view are known as diagnostic research studies);
4. To test a hypothesis of a causal relationship between variables (such studies are known as hypothesis-testing research studies).
The dimension of the research
Perhaps you have explored a new topic or issue in order to learn about it. If the issue was new or researcher had written little on it, you began at the beginning. This is called exploratory research. This is might the first stage in a sequences of studies. A researcher may need to conduct an exploratory study in order to know enough to design and execute a second, more systematic and extensive study.
Descriptive research presents a picture of the specific details of a situation, social setting, or relationships. Much of the social research found in scholarly journals or used for making policy decisions is descriptive. Descriptive and exploratory research has many similarities. They blur together in practice. In descriptive research, the researcher begins with a well-defined subject and conducts research to describe it accurately. The outcome of a descriptive study detailed picture of the subject. The descriptive research focuses on “how” and “who”. Exploring new issues or explaining why something happens.
It focuses on refuting or supporting theories that explain how the social world operates, what makes things happen, why social relations are certain way, and why society changes. This research also is the source of most new scientific ideas and ways of thinking about the world. Other than that basic research also provides a foundation for knowledge and understanding that are generalizable to many policy areas, problems or areas of study.
Applied researchers try to solve specific policy problems or help practitioners accomplish tasks. The theory is less to central to them than seeking solutions to specific problem for a limited setting. Applied research is frequently descriptive research and its main strength is its immediate practical use.
