It is possible that a successful researcher might have failed his very first research. But later mistakes made him competent.
The very first step in students research project is choosing a topic. And the first wrong step may lead the project to failure.
"But he never could think which he ought to do first and so in the end he did nothing at all." A.A. Milne (Ref 02)
At the time of selecting a topic, students seem very confused. They can’t decide about the topic. Most of the time they choose such a topic, which seem so easy but its as difficult as it seems easy. Students think that they can write a lot about the topic and they already know too much about it.
But latter when they start collecting data and writing about it they come across the situation of running out of the ideas. Sometime they choose such a superficial topic, which is not suitable for them. For that either they need a lot of technical equipments or collecting data about the subject is nearly impossible at that stage. Lake of resources may appear to be the big problem leading to the failure of the research. . For example a student studying computing science, selects a topic about supercomputers. The research needs supercomputer, which may not be available easily. Similarly a topic about astronomy or any other field where research needs a lot of equipments, resources and funds; student may not access those resources.
Some times topic is so broad or so narrow that students find difficulty to collect the data. So student must choose such a research topic for which he does not need the unapproachable resources. The topic should not be too broad or narrow.
Another reason could be the non-objective writing. Students do not write what they ask for. While researching they loose their track. They collect a lot of data. They work very hard. Everything they do is perfect but end of the day when they submit their work; they come to know that they were not asked for this work. And they have been doing research on the topic, which was not required. This happens when students misunderstand or misinterpret the topic. Even if they understand what they have been asked for, they collect non-relevant material and add it to their research. They do not pay proper attention and never try to clarify their thought. While presenting the data they do not care about the order of different elements. There could be many other factors relevant to non-objective writing.
The next step in research process could be choosing an appropriate research methodology. Students, unaware of the research methods applications, often fail their projects just by choosing wrong method. If the topic demands for qualitative method and researcher emphasize on quantitative method, defiantly he will be failed in very first glance. Generally, there are three research methodologies i.e. qualitative, quantitative and ethnographic. Students conducting qualitative and ethnographic research face trouble in collecting data. Student needs to prepare such a questionnaire that could help him in his research. The question should be purposeful. And before preparing the questionnaire student must study the design of questionnaire. There could be several issues related to the individuals.
It’s always difficult to measure the emotion and feelings of the people and especially for non-professional researchers like students it’s difficult. Qualitative and ethnographic researches need proficiency in the field to get the truth. Its difficult to conduct these researches for the student as sometimes to get truth researcher has to be unethical. Where researchers have to take risk. Student researchers involved in such researches often fail their research projects.
Once students have decided the methodology, the second crucial stage is collecting the data and information. This stage requires a lot of physical and mental efforts. Gathering data about a particular topic is of course difficult for the student researchers. Normally, Organizations do not show any interest to provide original data to a student (even sometime to a professional researchers as well) as it may contain some confidential data which organization do not want to disclose. Depending on the research project, getting data may be very easy (quantitative) or very difficult (qualitative or ethnographic). When students fail to get original data, they search illegal resources, copying data from books or Internet or many other resources (plagiarism). Which demands little imagination, skills and creativity, resulting little original work. Process of collecting data may take longer than predicted time. Students usually get late response from the organizations or individuals or sometime they never get response. Sometimes they get wrong data. There could be several other problems for the students while collecting data. Student may not have the appropriate resources as well. These all factors build a barrier in the success of a student project.
Personal skills and approach defiantly affect the researcher work. Research demands dedication, hard work, consistency and determination. Students having such qualities are often rewarded with high marks. Where as careless students do not pay proper attention to their responsibility. Their may several other personal reasons like family problem, atmosphere, interest and determination etc. This is recommended to start the search well before the submitting time. So that in plenty of time researcher could recover the errors and could do the required amendments easily. Students who do not care in the beginning they often get in trouble. They do not find sufficient time to give a final touch to the presentation. Sometimes students do not take it serious and do not try to put reasonable original work, which shows their lack of interest, less understanding. Those with less understanding and weak communication, feel more difficulty during the research and especially during the data collection process. Other personal skills like speaking, listening and particularly writing skills are of course primary importance for a researcher. Some of students fail their projects just because of feeble basic personal skills. Though data they collected is valuable, but they cannot evaluate and present it in a proper way.
They could not explain their thoughts in clear and meaningful way. Use of proper words in important as well. And language should be simple to understand.
Another reason responsible for unsuccessfulness of students’ research projects could be their non-professional approach or behavior. Most of the students doing their research, may be doing very first research project. Being quit new and unfamiliar with their task, they do make a lot of mistakes. Data collection could be the first major problem for them. Once they have collected the required data somehow, the next stage is to synthesize and produce their own information in their own unique way. This step plays vital role in the success of students. This is the stage where students have to show their ability of understanding and competency. Being learner they cannot synthesize data. At this stage student need to choose only the required useful data and should not include the unnecessary data. Another reason for the students project failure could be the course tauter expecting the research from his students like professionals. In very rare case it could be discrimination or in other words favoritism. Though the last two arguments are not very practicable and very often but still there is a possibility.
In a research project importance of references and bibliography cannot be denied. Students do not care about the references and bibliography. Either they don’t use the references or they use the wrong references. Method of referencing does affect the quality of work. Students are expected all those references from where they included any text or ideas. Bibliography shows how much students strived to get required data. Though they did not get any idea or useful information to be included in their research but they are suppose to show that to what extent he made efforts. References and bibliography increase the level of success in the sense it’s a plus point. Failure to provide right references and bibliography may lead the students’ project to unacceptable piece of work.
The age in which we are living is called the age of information. There is huge number of resources where information about anything could be find in abundance. Among all those resources internet is the main source of information. Now getting knowledge about something is very easy and it is very beneficial. But everything has its advantages and disadvantages. Unfortunately some students misuse it. Whatever they need is already there. Though in some cases they do not find all the material even then they can get at least 50 percent. This information is to use it as a base. A student researcher is supposed to produce his original work, which is not available already. Students copy the material from different source and add it to their work as it is or by modifying in someway pretending it as their own work. This is what called plagiarism. It may be called the dilemma of the day. It badly affects the student’s creativity. It reduces the original work. After making a lot of efforts, spending a lot time and sacrifices at the end of the day when students are informed about their failure just because of the plagiarism (regardless of the amount), they get upset. For those how has copied most of the material, might not be big shock, but those who has done a lot of original work but a little bit copying would be terrible.
The last step is the summarization and presentation of the project. Usually students do not bother to review their project to remove the errors. They do not summarize the whole idea in comprehensive way. Instead of genuine work some students try to decorate the writing with stylistics and fonts. Though this is suggested to use graphs and pictures to represent data in a more comprehensive way but it should be in a limit. Presentation skills are also important. How to present the project in an impressive way, is an art itself. The oral presentations play vital role. This is the stage where student has chance to explain his efforts. Students usually become nerves while they are presenting in front of the audience. As Janner says:
‘Confidence comes with preparation, practice and training’. Your audience will expect you to be a little nervous. Ref (04)
In shorts, failure is not a big issue. It’s a part of learning process. As we see on the driving school’s cars “ Back of you were a learner”, Mistakes teach the man. Successful researcher of day, whose researches benefited the mankind tremendously, has been student. They did mistakes when they were learners. It will be useful to say at this point that failures in the sense of learning process are good, if students take these as steps to success.
References
Ref 01.
Ref 02.
Ref 03.
Ref 04. P#473,Research Methods for business students
By Marks Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill, rd Edition,
Prentice Hall publishers
Ref 05. Dr. Peter McGee, Lectures and handouts (Ideas taken)
Bibliography
1. Writing up Qualitative Research by Harry F. Wolcott, qualitative research methods series 20, sage publishers
2. Emotions and Fieldwork by sherryl Kleinman and Martha A. Copp, Qualitative research methods series 28,Sage publishers
3. http://www.qual.auckland.ac.nz/
4. http://www.sagepub.com/journal.aspx?pid=120
Student ID: Research Methodology
