Abstract
This chapter discusses the import of research conceptualization, documentation, and communication. The intent is to clinically exposit the importance of research and its processes, to underscore the philosophy of research and its relevance to science, and to make research and its processes a better tool in the hands of researchers. Orchestrating this, the chapter clinically exposits the following sub-headings: research conceptualization, objective research, motivation in research, forms and types of research, exploratory research, descriptive research, qualitative research, quantitative, criteria of a good research method, methodological and theoretical robustness of research, research method and its methodology, and justification for the choice of research method. The chapter, therefore, may make a significant contribution to the field of research. Arguably, the essence is to make research methodology more apt and educative.
TopResearch Conceptualization
The onset of this paper requires a working definition of research. Generally and on the face value, research can be easily defined. However, scholars differ on definitions of research. This is expected given the universality of research. Every discipline conducts research. Kerlinger and Lee (2000) define research as scientific, systematic, controlled, empirical, amoral, public, and critical investigation of natural phenomenon. This definition, in itself, would require further enquiry into the terms used. Even at that, research truly involves what Kerlinger and Lee asserted. The process of planning and carrying out a research is a universal requirement for all researchers. All scientists have their own particular view of the purpose of research, but essentially, research is carried out in order to firstly describe, then explain and ultimately predict, with each of these reflecting a progressively more sophisticated application (McQueen & Knussen, 2006). Deductively, research conceptualization means that researchers who are supposed to be scientifically minded should have a focus of what is intended.
The usual way we approach the world is flawed, subjective and judgmental (and, indeed, very human). It may get us by on a day-to-day basis, but it is not an approach designed to accurately describe, explain or predict. To be able to do this, there is a need for a more rigorous, systematic and scientific approach to life – there is a need to adopt a research method.
Science takes off where intuition stops; many of our ideas and the rest may well be true but until they can be proved, they remain at the level of heuristics, unsupported beliefs or even superstition. It is understandable that individuals’ greater curiosity, implemented by their control of symbols would lead to speculations about the operation of the universe, the greater forces beyond their own control. Over many centuries, people began to develop what seemed to be plausible explanations. The operations of the forces of nature were not as capricious as they had been led to believe. People began to observe orderliness in the universe and certain cause-and-effect relationships; they discovered that under certain conditions events could be predicted with reasonable accuracy.