Question

What are the common steps involved in conducting a research? Discuss the steps involved.

Answer 1

Research is conducted to fulfill many purposes like filling out the gaps in the previous researches done on a variable, to identify and study in-depth about variables, to formulate new theories and test hypotheses etc. For conducting a scientific researches there are certain aspects that need to be taken care of, for example, ethical issues while conducting tests and publishing results etc. any scientific research needs to have certain good qualities also like, it should be replicable, controlled and predictable. The steps followed for conducting researches are as follows-

1. Step I- Identification of the research problem or research questions. This is the basic step for conducting any research. Identification and formulation of research problem leads the researcher to know whether it is feasible or not.
2. Step II- Identification of the variables is the second step. Based on the research problem the researcher tries to identify all the significant variables of the study. After identification, the researcher conceptually and operationally defines the variables and then proceeds with the next step.
3. Step III- Review of the literature- In this step the variables are studied in-depth and a thorough review of literature is done to identify the gaps and also to ascertain that no aspect of the study of the variable is missed.
4. Step IV- Deciding on the research design- Then the next step is to decide on the research design. It is defined as the blue print of the research. If the research is designed properly and effectively, then it provides an opportunity to the researcher to utilize the data well, and also to extract maximum results from the available data. In research design, all the things like sample size, description of tools, procedure for conducting research, statistical analysis of the data are included.
5. Step V- Data Collection and Data Analysis is the next step. The data with the help of proper tools is collected and is analyzed and the results are generated in this step.
6. Step VI- Interpretation and Report Writing is the last of social-scinetific research. the obtained results are thoroughly interpreted in the light of previous researches and the hypotheses are tested for being retained or rejected in this step. The research finally ends with the report writing.

This means that any research has to undergo these six steps to get completed. While writing research report caution is maintained by giving proper referencing and also abstaining form plagiarism.