Thinking Activity: Learning Outcome-Research & Dessertation Writing Workshop

Hello friends!

I am Daya Vaghani, student of the Department of English,MKBU.It is said that being a researcher requires dedication, hard work and more than a little inspiration.Research is something that everyone can do, and everyone ought to do. It is simply collecting information and thinking systematically about it.( Raewyn Connell).Well I am not agree with this statement because I believe that it's not too easy to become a researcher.Today in this blog I am going to write about the learning outcome of the workshop that we had attended in 4th January,2022.In this semester we have dissertation writing and for that sir has designed workshop on Research Methodology at Department of English - Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University. The Resource Persons of this workshop were Prof. Dilip Barad and Dr. Ndoricimpa Clement.This blog is assigned as a part of Thinking Activity by our teacher.In this blog I am going to write about the learning outcome of the session.

Research Methodology: 

 A  one Day Workshop

Resource Persons: Prof.Dilip Barad

                        Dr.Clement Ndaricimpa

When we are told to do research and write a dissertation we sometimes do not know where to begin with, what is involved in research, what steps they must follow, what structure a dissertation must have, what argumentation style they may adopt, etc. Indeed, doing research and writing may be daunting to us. This may be because of the complexity and the technicality involved in research and in writing a dissertation. Therefore, this workshop is intended by teacher  to help students.The given topics were the key concern of this workshop:

●    understand what is involved in research and the steps that are adopted in research;

●    identify an appropriate research topic;

●    select and define a research problem;

●    select appropriate research design and methods;

●    organize and write a dissertation;

●    understand the style of argumentation.

In this workshop the resource persons dealt with following topics:

1.Concept of Research

• What is Research?

• Types of Research

• Characteristics of Research

2.Selection of a Topic for Research

• How to select a topic?

• Steps in the selection of topic

• Characteristic of a topic for research

3.Research Process

• Defining Research Problem

• .Research objectives, questions/hypotheses

• Literature Review (Review of the concepts and of previous studies)

• Research Design

• Data collection

• Data analysis

• Interpretation and discussion of the findings

4.Writing a dissertation

They discussed the types of Research they are as below…

Types of Research 1 Historical 2 Descriptive 3 Correlation 4 Cultural

In this workshop we learnt so many things and that will help us to do our research in a more qualitative way.After discussing about the types they discussed the characteristics of research.Research must consist of following characteristics..

1.    It is based on the works of others;

2.    It can be replicated (duplicated)- reliability;

3.    It is generalizable to other settings (external validity);

4.    It is based on some logical rationale and tied to a particular theory (content validity);

5.    It is doable;

6.    It generates news questions;

7.    It is important;

8.    It advances the frontiers of knowledge.

How to select a topic?

Many researchers get stuck while selecting the topic for their research.First, it is recommended to select a topic that is closely connected to our intellectual interests, personal experiences, and favorite research areas. Second, we have to answer the following questions before selecting a topic for research:

●    Do I have necessary skills to accomplish this study?

●    Are research tools and participants accessible to complete this study?

●    Am I financially capable to accomplish my work? Is the allotted time sufficient to finalize all the steps of research?

●    Do I have resources and documents necessary to obtain data?

●    Is there an availability of professionals in my research who are ready to advise and assist me in the course of my research?

After discussing about this sir taught us that which topic should be considered as good and what are the characteristics of the good topic.So here are the Characteristic of a topic for research…

a.    Descriptive and informative (explanatory):

b.    Accurate and precise: 

c.    Internally consistent: 

d. Research process

The structure of a dissertation

	The structure of a dissertation
A	Introduction
B	Literature review
C	Research methods/theoretical        framework for literary studies.
D	Interpretation and discussion of the findings
E	Conclusion

It was very fruitful session for the sem 4 as well sem 2 students.We have already submitted our research proposal to the sir.But after today's session we became more clear about our topic,how can we do the argument,which kind of question we may raise and many more.Many students asked the questions regarding their topic and the answers were quite satisfied to them.At the end of the session sir has given a book for research in ELT as a love of token to the department students.We are greatful to the resource persons for this well designed workshop.

Thank you.....

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