CHAPTER ONE: RESEARCH BASICS

Chapter One
Research Basics
Definition
a. Research is the systematic and objective analysis and recording of controlled observations that may lead to the development of generalizations, principles, or theories, resulting in prediction and possibly ultimate control of events.
b. Research is a systematic effort made as an attempt to find out facts or information that support certain views about a specific point in a subject, or to discover new rules that govern the different relationships between a number of variables in a phenomenon.
This means that:
• Research is a systematic process that requires certain planning and preparation of the steps that should be followed.
• Such a process is performed to achieve a certain end, which we may call product.
• The research is conducted on the assumption that there is a problem that needs to be solved, and the research is taken to solve this problem.
c. Research is a systematic process of collecting and analyzing data that will investigate a research problem or question, or help researchers obtain a more complete understanding of a situation. The goal of research is to describe, explain, or predict present or future phenomena.
More specifically, research should be:

• Systematic: a study has a clear structure with definite procedural rules that must be followed. There are rules for designing a study, for controlling different problems that may adversely influence the study, and for choosing and applying statistics (if necessary). It is these rules that make such studies systematic and that can help us read, interpret, and critique studies. It is these rules that underlie the logic of research.
• Logical research: the rules and procedures underlying these studies form a straightforward, logical pattern—a step-by-step progression of building blocks, each of which is necessary for the logic to succeed. If the procedures are violated, one or more building blocks may be missing and the logic will break down like any other logic.
• Tangible research: research is tangible in that it is based on the collection (and sometimes manipulation) of data from the real world.
The set of data may take the form of scores, subjects’ ranks on course grades, the number of language learners who have certain characteristics, and so forth. It is the manipulation, or processing, of these data that links the study to the real world.
• Research should also be replicable: the researcher’s proper presentation and explanation of the system, logic, data collection, and data manipulation in a study should make it possible for the reader to replicate the study. If the study is clearly explained and if we can understand it well enough to replicate it, then we probably have enough information to judge its quality. Perhaps then, we should consider replicability to be one of the first yardstick when critiquing any such article.
• Reductive research: research can reduce the confusion of facts that language and language teaching, for example, frequently present, sometimes on a daily basis. Through doing or reading such studies, we may discover new patterns in the facts. Or through these investigations and the eventual agreement among many researchers, general patterns and relationships may emerge that clarify the field as a whole.