Purpose Of Research
Research has proved to be a powerful tool
in driving the mankind towards development. That is why, the terms Research and
Development (R and D) are now used as twins as Research & Development
(R&D). John W.Best observes that, "the secret of our development has
been research pushing back the areas of ignorance by discovering new truths,
which, in turn, lead to better ways of doing things and better products".
Today's emphasis in almost all fields of life is 'creativity and innovation'.
Any creative and innovative mind, is actually a research mind. As John W.Best
rightly observed, we owe all our development, social, cultural, economic,
business, education, etc to research in these areas. There is no development without
research. Research, according to J.Lahiri, economises effort, prevents wastage,
increases efficiency, and reacts to vitalize and dignify the work of the
concerned".
i)
Progress and good life: The purpose of all research in progress
and good life. Progress results if the space of ignorance is occupied by
knowledge and wisdom. The latter are the results of good research. Knowledge
and wisdom drive the mankind to live an orderly good life.
ii)
Development of scientific attitude: One of the
purposes of research is to develop scientific attitude. Scientific attitude is
one that asks 'Why' and 'How' and answers are found. This 'Know-why' and
'know-how' attitude nurtures talents and such intellectual talents are the
great assets of society.
iii)
Creativity and innovativeness: One of the
purposes of research is encouragement to creativity and innovation. New
products, new processes and new uses are the means through which the world goes
dynamic. A dynamic world is not possible without newness introduced every now
and then in every walk of life. And this is possible only through creativity
and innovation. Research kindles the creativity and innovative instincts of
people and thus experiments on the possibility of new things instead of waiting
for the accidental and slow experience path to creativity and innovation.
iv)
Testing hypothesis and establishing theories: A very
important/ purpose of research is testing of hypothesis and establishing
theories. As was already pointed out knowledge is power. That knowledge comes
from testing hypotheses and establishing new theories. Proven hypotheses become
theories.
v)
Prediction and Control: Applied research has a great say in
prediction and control-in almost all walks of human endeavour. Prediction is
jumping into the future and the theories constitute the launch pad. Control
looks for deviation between actual happening and predicted happening. In the
process, the theories get reevaluated and redefined.
vi)
Purposive development: Development = Growth + Change, Growth is
uni-scaled while change is multi-scaled. In the natural process development
does take place through trial and error through casual observations, through
actual exposure and the like. But this is evolutionary and time consuming.
Revolutionary development takes fourth through discontinuous change. Research
is the seed of such dichotomous charge or even disruptive change which
contributes to purposive development.
vii)
Problem Solving: The purpose of any research is problem
solving. What is a problem? Problem is deprivation or depreciation of
something. Knowledge deprivation, efficiency deprivation, productivity
depreciation, etc exist. How can these be solved? Research into the forces that
cause deprivation and measures to contain them from causing deprivation is
needed. Thus, problem solving is a great purpose of research.
viii)
Schematic Evaluation: Research is also carried, out to
systematically evaluate a process or practice or an organisation to know its
strengths and weaknesses so that areas for improvement process can be identified.
ix)
Impact Analysis: Research is
undertaken to assess the impact of certain measures or change introduced on
relevant variables. Impact studies are useful for biological, social, business,
economic and other areas of decision making.
x)
Methodological Improvement: Another purpose of research is improving
research methodology itself. Developments in the field of measurement and
scaling are immense. Whether these can be appropriately used in the case of
particular research areas? To answer the question research needs to be done.
Validation, revalidation and devalidation of methodological aspects thus
constitute good piece of research. And this is one of the purposes of research.
In fact, any research has a responsibility towards contribution to
methodological enrichment
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