PRACTICAL RESEARCH 2

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
Nature of Inquiry
and Research 1
U n i t
 INTRODUCTION

There are many things you want to know in this world. People, things, places,
events—their characteristics or qualities make you wonder continuously, frequently,
or intermittently. Marveling at them, you tend to immerse yourself in a situation
where you seem to be grappling with a problem or a puzzle. Questions after questions
on the many aspects of the object of your curiosity prod you to move, act, or do
something to find answers to your questions or to discover truths about your
inferences or speculations on such object. Behaving like an investigator, asking and
seeking answers to some questions about the thing you find puzzling indicates the
true nature of inquiry or research.
LESSON 1- Inquiry vs. Research: A Review
Intended Learning Outcomes
After this lesson, you should able to:
1. Relate an unfamiliar term with other terms to discover the meaning of such difficult term;
2. Explain the meaning of research in relation to inquiry;
3. Point out the similarities and differences of research and inquiry;
4. Distinguish lower-level questions from top-level questions to give stress to investigative
thinking;
5. Judge the applicability of inquiry or research to a given situation; and
6. Appraise the value of concepts learned about inquiry and research.
Activity 1
Based on your stock knowledge and on the words surrounding the middle
word provide a definition for each cluster.

study inspect

scrutinize

Probe peruse

investigate
haphazard
mixed
consider reflect

ponder

meditate contemplate
 random

unplanned illogic
disorderly
 Inquiry vs. Research

Inquiry- a term that is synonymous with the word “investigation”. When you
inquire or investigate, you tend to ask questions to probe or examine something.
You do this kind of examination through your HOTS or higher-order thinking
strategies of inferential, analytical, critical, creative and appreciative thinking to
discover more understandable or meaningful things beyond such object of your
inquiry. Thinking in this manner makes you ask open-ended questions to elicit
views, opinions, and beliefs of others in relation to your research.
 Inquiry vs. Research

Research- a scientific, experimental, or inductive manner of thinking.

Starting from particular to more complex ideas, you execute varied thinking
acts that range from lower-order to higher order thinking strategies reflected
by these research activities: identifying the topic problem, gathering data, and
drawing conclusions.
Methods of Research
To be a researcher is to be a scientist, who must think logically or systematically; your
research activities must follow a certain order, like doing inductive thinking that makes you
ponder on specific ideas first, then move to more complex concepts like conclusions or
generalizations or do the opposite of inductive thinking which is deductive thinking that lets
you start from forming generalizations to examining details about the subject matter. These
are not the only approaches, though, that you can adhere to in planning your research work.
Depending on your topic and purpose, you are free to choose from several approaches,
methods, and types of research you learned in your previous research subject, Practical
Research 1. (Gray 2011; Sharp 2012)
Inquiry vis-à-vis Research
One scholarly activity that greatly involves inquiry is research. Similar to inquiry that starts
from what you are ignorant about, research makes you learn something by means of a problem-
solving technique. Both inquiry and research encourage you to formulate questions to direct you to
the exact information you want to discover about the object of your curiosity. Your questions operate
like a scrutiny of a person’s attire to find out what are hidden between or among the compartments
or folded parts of his/her clothes. Although the core word for both inquiry and research is
investigation or questioning, they are not exactly the same in all aspects. Research includes more
complex acts of investigation than inquiry because the former follows a scientific procedure of
discovering truths or meanings about things in this world. (Goodwin 2014; Lapan 2012)
 WHOLE CLASS ACTIVITY

• Determine whether Inquiry or Research is applicable to the given

situations. Check the corresponding column of your answer.
Situation Inquiry Research
1. A person wants to know the
occupant of one condominium.

2. A student wants to know the

medicinal effects of guava
leaves.

3. Mr. Cruz wants to know the

technique to make his electric
fan function instantly.
 Situation Inquiry Research
4. Professor Gomez wants to
discover the impact of social
networking on his students’
learning abilities.

5. Aling Rosa wants to know the

reason behind the decrease of her
sales for the day.

6. A business man wants to find

out which between these two
marketing strategies: free tasting
and attractive packaging, could
increase daily sales.
 CONCEPT EXPLANATION

Comprehension Check Directions:

Explain your understanding of inquiry and research by answering the following questions.
1. Compare and contrast Inquiry and Research.
2. Which is easier to carry out: Inquiry or Research? Give reasons for your answer.
3. How can a researcher be a scientist?
4. What if you do things randomly in research, what will be the consequences?
5. Should you immediately concern yourself with data analysis prior to research
approach? Why? Why not?
6. Could Inquiry and Research go together? Explain your point.
7. What do you think of this line: Inquiry occurs completely with excessive familiarity
with the physical looks of an object?
8. Do these two words, Inquiry and Research, somehow indicate strength of character?
9. Have you had an application of Inquiry and Research in your day-to-day life?
Explain.
10. Name some institutions or organizations that often engage themselves in inquiry and
research. Describe their ways of doing it.
LOWER ORDER THINKING SKILLS – HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS

Creating
High order
thinking Evaluating
skills
Analyzing
Applying
Low order Understanding
thinking
skills
Remembering
Concept-Learning Assessment
Use percentage grade (50%-100%) to indicate the extent of your learning
about each of the following topics.

1. Differences and similarities between Inquiry and Research

2. Behavior of people practicing Inquiry and Research

3. Reasons behind people’s inquisitive attitudes

4. Research as an inductive thinking

5. Lower-order and higher order thinking strategies

 That’s all for Today!
Thank you for listening and
participating.
Next Topic: Lesson 2- Quantitative Research

Lesson 3- Experimental Research