An Overview of Research Process

Nasir Mahmood, PhDAssociate Professor and Chairman

Department of Research and EvaluationUniversity of the Punjab

Learning Objectives

O Provide an orientation to the steps involved in research activity

O Appreciate importance of each step O Understand the interrelation of all steps

Textbook: Research Methods for Business Students by Saunders (Ch. 1)

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Wish to do Research

Formulate and Clarify

your research

topic

Critically review the literature

Choose your research approach

and strategy

Negotiate access

and address ethical issues

Plan your data collection and collect data using one or more of:

Sampling Secondary data

Observation Semi-structured

and in-depth

interviews

Questionnaires

Analyze your data using one or both of

Quantitative methods Qualitative methods

Project report and Presentation

Forward planning

Reflection and revision

The Research Process

Formulating and Clarifying Research Topic

O Think about broader area of interest within the disciplines of business i.e. L2, Educational Psychology, Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, language acquisition, etc.

O Within your selected discipline identify sub-areas of interest e.g. within Role of discourse and understanding, non-native environment and language acquisition, etc.

O Concerning role of language discourse it can be initiators leading to reasoning development etc.

Textbook: Research Methods for Business Students by Saunders (Ch. 1)

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Formulating and Clarifying Research Topic

O Think about the phenomenon in which you are interested like role, relationship, effect, difference, comparison, etc.

O Define the subjects of your studyO Define the levels of your studyO Put all these elements in a meaningful and

precise manner to make title of your study.

Textbook: Research Methods for Business Students by Saunders (Ch. 1)

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Check your statement A good title informs the reader about;

1. type of study, 2. nature of analysis it asks for, (i). Instruments

(ii). Inferential statistics likely to be used3. variables involved, 4. subjects and 5. levels of study

Textbook: Research Methods for Business Students by Saunders (Ch. 1)

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Textbook: Research Methods for Business Students by Saunders (Ch. 1)

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Let us state a research problem

Identify elements of research topic

A study of the Impacts of the stress

management course on the relative stress experienced by the middle level management workers in restaurant industry of metropolitan cities in Punjab

Textbook: Research Methods for Business Students by Saunders (Ch. 1)

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