Being a college student comprises or entails a lot of tasks, but one of the most significant tasks or responsibilities that every college student cannot skip is research work or researching a particular topic or paper. Now, what does research mean, or what does it mean for a college student or individual to engage in research work?
“Research” can be defined as a scientific and systematic search for pertinent or vital information on a specific topic. Now from the given definition, it can be understood that every research follows a specific systematic pattern and also scientific in nature, that’s for research to be valid or accurate, it shouldn’t be done randomly, but systematically and scientifically.
Now, what are the systematic procedures that college students or individuals have to follow during research work to make it accurate and scientific? Below are the systematic order of the procedures.
- Define the research problem: This involves a statement of the problem that the research is going to be conducted on.
- Review of available literature: This also involves reviewing other research papers conducted by other people on the same or similar topic or problem.
- Formulate hypothesis: This deals with predicting or foretelling the possible outcome of the research
- Research design: This deals with sample design, where the data will be collected, which methods will be used to collect the data etc
- Collection of data: This compromise using several data collection methods such as questionnaires to gather the needed information from the samples.
- Analysis of data: At this stage, the data collected will be analyzed to omit any mistakes and irrelevant data from it for further process.
- Interpretation and report: This the final stage of every systematic and scientific research. This is where the result will be interpreted by using several statistics tools like a graph, pie chart, etc. And finally, submission or publishing of the research results.
Now looking from the above systematic procedure provided, it may look like conducting research may be a difficult task for college students and even other individuals. Yes, this may be true, but some tips can help college students or individuals to conduct research work with more ease.
Below are some of the tips,
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Select a Vital Question or Statement of Problem Which Is Clear and Not Too Much Ambiguous:
When it comes to research, clarity of the problem or question really matters and hence this is one of the major tips every college student has to know regarding research work.
That’s the student has to ensure that the question or problem was chosen is clear, relevant, or worth researching about, well understood, and not ambiguous. Ambiguous questions or problems which is not clear and well-understood end up putting the student under much stress.
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Plan and Prepare a Draft of the Time Schedule for the Complete Research Work:
This is also a very significant tip that every college student and even individuals have to know regarding research. That’s the total time that the research is going to be taken should be planned and also break the full research work into smaller components and set time limits for each sub-component. This will help the students to be time conscious of the research work and hence make the work more efficient and flexible.
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Reviewing Available Kinds of Literature and Other Relevant Sources to Gather Information on the Chosen Topic or Problem:
No matter how the topic or problem will be, earlier research work would have been done on it. So it very necessary for the student to review the available literature to gather some information. These may include some problems that the early researchers faced, time duration, results, etc. This vital information will help you equip yourself with adequate requirements or preparation for the research work and hence facilitate the smooth running of the research. Also, this information can help in the formulation of the hypothesis
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Never Be Afraid or Reluctant To Seek For Help Anytime During the Research Work:
Another significant tip for every college student or individual regarding research work is the ability to ask for help or seek help from other adequate people which have requisite knowledge or understanding in the field of research which may include college professor, head of the department, etc., in every moment of the research work when he or she is being stacked. This tip is very significant for especially fresh research students or those who are conducting their first research work. Since research may be quite challenging for individuals or students especially when they have no prior experience, college students or individuals must ask for any help alongside their research work
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Conducting or Doing One Research Work At a Time:
As per the above-given definition of research, every good and accurate research has to be systematic and scientific in nature. That’s certain patterns and processes that have to be followed for research to be valid. Therefore it requires adequate attention and care to carry out good and precise research work. That means if a student or individual does not stick to one research work at a time, at the end of the work, inadequate attention, rushing, and too much stress will significantly influence the accuracy of the results. Also, remember that research is not just done for fun but to find solutions to existing problems. Moreover, other researchers may be using your published research work as viable literature to review when conducting further research on the same topic or topic similar to that and this is going to create confusion and also may affect their research results.
Finally, research is very significant in the life of every college student, that’s no college student can omit research work so far as he or she remains a student no matter how they try to avoid it or how much they don’t like research work. But with the help of this content, every college student and even individuals will be able to carry out research work with ease.
