Introduction to Research

K P Mohanan and Tara Mohanan

27 February 2021

QUIZ 1
This quiz has THREE questions. The total recommended time for the quiz is two hours.
Some of you might complete it in much less time, and others might take more time. But
don't take more than five or six hours, as that would be unproductive. At any point, if
you are stuck, go have a cup of tea or coffee, or call a friend to crack a silly joke, before
you come back to the quiz.

Question I
This is a comprehension question, for you to make sure that you have read and
understood the material we have sent you.
In the statements A–I below, fill in the blanks with the number of the appropriate item
from among the list of 32 'candidates':
Candidates:
1. certain 9. history 17. methodologies 25. questions
2. clear 10. humanities 18. philosophical 26. rational
3. conceptual 11. information 19. philosophy 27. research
4. consequences 12. inheritance 20. physics 28. rigorous
5. contradictions 13. knowledge 21. precise 29. science
6. definition 14. logical 22. predictions 30. social
7. fallible 15. mathematical 23. problems 31. tentative
8. historical 16. mathematics 24. psychological 32. theorems
A. ___ inquiry begins with a question of the form "What is x?", and proceeds to answer
the question with a ___.
B. ___ seeks to understand the nature of logically possible imagined worlds, while ___
seeks to understand the nature of the world we inhabit.
C. Different questions call for different ___: some call for data, others call concept
clarification, and yet others for thought experiments, and so on.
D. An individual sentence, not connected to other statements, is a piece of ___; a set of
statements become ___ when they are connected and integrated into a coherent
whole.
E. A body of beliefs is ___ only if they satisfy the conditions of the acceptance of logical
___ and the rejection of logical ___.
F. Every answer to a question of the form, “What is x?” can trigger further ___ of the
same form.
G. The principle of ___ inheritance allows for a category to inherit the attributes of its
mother category.
H. Research ___ and research ___ are different ways of formulating the starting point
for research.
I. The logical consequences of a set of premises are called ___ in mathematics and ___
in science.

www.thinq.education
Question 2
Here is a part of a research proposal that Zeno has submitted.
In my thesis, I plan to use a combination of surveys and focus groups. The plan is to
have a discussion with women graduates in six groups of five, to explore the
problems they face with their male bosses. I have already had discussions with two
groups, and I intend to do so with four more groups.
In the two group discussions, women who were fresh MBAs reported that they faced
considerable discrimination at their workplace. According to their reports, their male
bosses, usually engineers without an MBA degree, make derogatory remarks about
the poor mastery of quantitative thinking of the MBAs. Participants also said that
their bosses are also unwilling to promote the women as partners.
I will probe further into these grievances in my focus group explorations. In the
surveys, I intend to get email addresses of employees from established firms around
the country, and send out forms to survey at least a hundred of them. The form will
have twenty questions, with five options for each question, in both English and
Hindi, designed to elicit their responses to the discriminatory practices in that
women face at the workplace. The results would be analysed using ANOVA.

Given below is a list. Read the passage, and try to reconstruct the research question
that Zeno is seeking an answer to.

1 Inequality in Indian society

2 Inequity in Indian society
3 Inequity in Indian Society: a qualitative and quantitative analysis
4 Inequity in Indian Society: an ethnographic study
5 Do workplaces in India discriminate against women?
6 What are the causes of gender bias?
7 Problems that women face in their workplace.
8 How do we solve the problem of prejudice against women?
9 Patriarchy in the workplace
10 Female employees and male bosses: An exploration
11 Why are women MBA graduates discriminated against?
12 Discrimination in the Indian workplace
13 What are the workplace prejudices against women?
14 Sexism in the workplace

2
Question 3
Zeno's thesis committee pointed out a set of serious flaws in the proposal outlined in
Question 2. From the list given below of flaws pointed out by the committee, select (put
a tick against) those that you think are legitimate objections.
[Since you do not know the issue Zeno is trying to address through his thesis from the
options in (1)-(14) in Question 2, we have specified some of the possible research
questions, and for each question, the flaw that the committee may have pointed out in
Zeno's research plan for that question.]

1 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (5), the methodology is
inappropriate.
2 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (6), the methodology is
inappropriate.
3 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (8), the methodology is
inappropriate.
4 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (11), the methodology is
inappropriate.
5 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (5), the sample that Zeno
proposes to select is not representative.
6 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (6), the sample that Zeno
proposes to select is not representative.
7 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (14), the sample that Zeno
proposes to select is not representative.
8 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (5), the researcher has already
decided what the answer is.
9 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (6), the researcher has already
decided what the answer is.
10 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (9), the researcher has already
decided what the answer is.
11 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (3), the calculations given are
wrong.
12 If the issue that the thesis seeks to address is (12), the researcher has failed to
provide adequate justification.

~ The End ~