MELANIE M.

GRAJO
Master’s in Education

METHODS OF RESEARCH
“The Blind Men and the Elephant”

People begin to discover objects and experiences through careful observation. Almost
every invention and discoveries that mankind are introduced to nowadays were product of
observation. Observations that determined the areas and the disciplines that we lack on, needed
improvement, and even have excessiveness to. Research in most ideas, is one of the most
common ways to identify such singularity and address such issues. But what if you have the
desire to observe a certain phenomenon but you lack the ability to perform such action? How
are you going to prove a certain allegation or theory if you do not have the specific mean to
deviate from theory to conclusion? The perennial problem of looking for a problem and
searching for solutions to confront the problem.
The poem “The Blind Men and the Elephant” narrates the tale of six blind men who
tried to gather information to acquire new experience by observing through a certain
perspective. Each one being blind, tried to conclude how an elephant may appear or feels like
just by using a fixated method of “touch” as an observation tool. Given such circumstances,
they were indeed successful in acquiring the experience and creating conclusions as to how an
elephant looks like or feel like, but the validation of the data presented were unreliable as they
only based their examination on a particular point of view.
How they accomplished their observation was a simple comparison to conducting
research. The problem was obvious that their curiosity to learn about the elephant is what has
driven them to conduct their observation. The objective was their and the method was also
present as it was described vividly as to how they performed each action and concluded the
information. The order of observation was also clear as they had their individual objectives of
finding out a sensation on each of the parts of an elephant. However, in summary of their
observation, they were almost successful with their purpose, but they failed to find out the
actual image of the subject, in lieu of their condition—which made the result of their study
invalid.
A research is something that has to be done in a systematic way, with careful
consideration and making sure that every aspect of the matter is covered to avoid any biased
conclusion or findings. It follows a certain method that is appropriate to each study being
conducted to which the result will make it valid for public affirmation and usage. The poem
being tackled mirrors how research is imperative to a discovery, and how observation is also
vital to finding out the true essence of what is being studied to formulate a valid and
quantifiable results.