GA-ANO, JIRAH BANATAO

METHODS OF RESEARCH
1. Why is research important in your job? How does it affect your life as
educator? (15points)
Research has a big role in our life. It leads us to discovery that will make our
life easy and simply. As a teacher, research is very important to us specially in making
intervention that will cater the needs of our learners using our action research and
discovering things towards our learners for their room for improvement. Research can
help us also to understand what works and why, what the short and long-term
implications are, provide a justification and rationale for decisions and actions, help to
build a repertoire to help deal with the unexpected, identify problems, inform
improvement and so forth. Research has often been thought of as an activity carried
out by experts—people who are able to control a study, provide results and then make
a claim of originality over the findings. However, good teachers have always been
good researchers. In fact, any teacher who has asked a question deemed essential to
practice and used a systematic method to find an answer has engaged in a form of
research. Attentive teachers observe their students and, through systematic and
embedded study, come to understand the culture of their learning environment.
It affects our life as an educator like we need to analyze the individual needs of
students or learning environments and, after reflection and consideration, adjust her
actions to best meet student and system needs. The cycle then continues again within
the same, or a new group, of students, as the teacher/researcher begins an iterative
cycle of question(s), observation(s), reflection(s) and action(s). Teachers continuously
empower students to create knowledge (just as teachers do for themselves). Any
educator who has explored new curriculum, evaluated teaching practices, chosen one
new idea over another, or re-evaluated a daily teaching choice based on evidence and
a guiding question, has engaged in research. Such research is essential to both
teaching and learning. Our desire is to consciously embrace these actions and call
them what they are—research. Research is not just the domain of an expert outside the
classroom; it is also the domain of the teaching professional. Good teachers are good
researchers; if they were not, they would not be good teachers.
My encouragement to teachers extends to a call for legitimization of such
research activity, which includes naming it, doing it and sharing it. Research should be
a necessary extension of the teaching profession and should make our classroom
research and professional knowledge more viable to the public.
2. What qualifications should a researcher possess? Give at least 5 and
discuss each. (10 points).
I believe in the saying that sharing is showing what love is and giving hope to
others. As researcher should share what he/she discover for the improvement of one
person or for the goodness of all. The qualification that a researcher should possess
are the following:
Open mindedness: To explain how powerful the mind is, Albert Einstein once said
that the measure of intelligence is the ability to change the mind. It is one of the most
important characteristics of a good researcher because researching has to do with
finding new fact which may sometimes require that the researchers alter previously
valid facts. A researcher must not be someone who hardly gives up on his beliefs,
custom or knowledge. He has to be someone who is able to see things in different
lights. He must understand that nothing is actually static and things change over time.
Researching may sometimes lead you to find out that even some of the things you
consider fundamental knowledge are not actually fundamental; or maybe there are
more to it. Thus, a researcher who is not open minded during researching is limited to
a lot of knowledge.
Amiable Personality: A researcher must have a friendly disposition. He should be
easily approachable and should also have the ability to communicate with people in a
friendly and coherent manner. A researcher that is unfriendly, gloomy and
unapproachable may find it difficult extracting information from his respondents.
A researcher should also exhibit friendliness to whoever works with him (if he is in a
team with other researchers). This act of friendliness reduces friction within the team
and the team is most likely to finish up their task in record time.

Patience: One of the sterling attributes of a good researcher is patience. This quality

is a follow-up attribute to being motivated. A researcher must exhibit a high degree
of patience, both with his respondents and in the course of his research when the
much needed result is not forthcoming, in addition to his being consistent with the
effort he puts in.

Motivation: A researcher must have the ability to motivate himself to work. He

should not be easily discouraged. In the course of his research, he might come across
some hostile respondents. This should not deter him from carrying on his research
work. Again, he might be met with opposition from his colleagues. Such oppositions
should not serve as a source of discouragement to him. A researcher therefore, must
have the ability to encourage and motivate himself to push on until he actualizes his
aim.

Accuracy: A researcher must ensure that his research work is accurate. He should
ensure that the facts and figures which he is presenting are true and verifiable. There
should be no room for conjecture or guesses.He should exhibit due diligence in
presenting his work so as not to present a false and misleading research as the
accuracy of the research determines the credibility to be attached to the researcher.
3. Explain the following characteristics of research. (15 points)
a. Empirical
Empirical is one of the characteristics of research which the research will use
empirical evidence. It is also a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect
observation or experience. Empiricism values some research more than other kinds.
Empirical evidence can be analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively research questions are
important factors to the empirical research process, and researchers often derive their
questions from the problem they are trying to solve. These questions highlight the
investigator's primary goals and help them develop the hypothesis they test during the
empirical analysis process. Empirical also means the research is based on observed and
measured phenomena and derives knowledge from actual experience rather than from theory
or belief.
For example: A research is being conducted to find out if listening to happy music
while working may promote creativity? An experiment is conducted by using a music
website survey on a set of audience who are exposed to happy music and another set who are
not listening to music at all, and the subjects are then observed. The results derived from such
a research will give empirical evidence if it does promote creativity or not.
b. Authentic
Authenticity in research implies that the conduct and evaluation of research are
genuine and credible and also that the research is worthwhile and contributes to the field. We
assume that you are referring to the genuineness and credibility of your work. At the same
time, you have mentioned that you have “used various sources while writing the paper,”
which could indicate concerns such as plagiarism. Accordingly, we shall address your
question in :
First, the authenticity of research can be looked at from various perspectives:
 Novelty: A study is truly authentic if it has not been done before, addresses a question
that has not been asked before, or sets out to bridge pre-existing knowledge gaps.
 Credibility: This relates to the accuracy of the methods, data, and findings. In an
authentic study, the data should be representative of the sample studied/experiment
conducted.
 Validity: This means that the design, method, and conclusions address the research
question adequately and are free of biases (intentional or unintentional).
 Reproducibility: You should provide sufficient experimental detail for a future
researcher to be able to replicate your study.
Coming to your point of having used multiple sources during writing, it is important to
base your study on the published literature. However, plagiarism in any form would
compromise the authenticity and originality of your paper. Plagiarism includes not only
verbatim copying of text, but also conceptual plagiarism (incorporating distinctive ideas,
expressions, concepts, etc., from a source without acknowledging the source) and translated
plagiarism. If you are concerned about borrowing text from other sources, you may handle
that through paraphrasing. For doing that, you may find this resource helpful: Ward off
plagiarism: How to paraphrase writing. And of course, you may also use a professional
review and editing service, that can help improve your manuscript in several ways, from
language and plagiarism issues to the scientific elements.
c. Novelty
The novelty of the research refers to one or elements that are new in the research,
including new methodology or new observation which leads to new knowledge discovery. A
novelty might contribute to scientific progress, as stated by the Philosopher, Imre Lakatos,
that good research programs are “progressive”. The novelty of the research and research
impact can be a strategic way to engage the attention of the readers in a research paper. The
essence of the novelty of the obtained results of the research needs to be connected with their
importance for science as well as with practical importance. For finding novelty in the area of
research, researchers need to conduct a thorough literature review to find out what is studied
and what are gaps need to be clarified. This literature review depends on in-depth knowledge
of the field. Researchers should compare and link their work with other previous research.
Many high-impact journals will tend to prioritize choosing to publish novel articles. With a
large amount of research and rapid scientific development, it becomes a challenge and
pressure for some researchers to produce innovative and relevant research.
The novelty of your research speaks for itself, however, it is a good idea to highlight it
in your research. Write down how your study is different from the other past studies and what
novel idea it represents. What is it that you achieved through your study? This will also help
highlight the originality, validity, and creativity in your research to the readers. There are
many ways you can highlight your novelty in research. The most important, of course, is the
problem that you solve through this study. Sometimes, you use a novel methodology to solve
a problem, so, mention it in the materials and methods section. Otherwise, you can write the
novelty of your research in the introduction section as well. The conclusions of your research
also present a good area where you need to tell the readers how your study solves a problem.
And, how it adds to the current knowledge gap. Add points in the discussion section about the
findings of the research and how those findings can help.