1. Introduction

It is rightly said “Research is about creating new knowledge. It is about exploring the hidden facts, followed by description and explanation.”

In its pursuit to promote research, the Centre for Research Innovation and Training, The IIS University, Jaipur organized a 10 Day Course on Research Methodology from 10 September to 19 September, 2013. The course was sponsored by Indian Council for Social Science Research, New Delhi. The objective of the course was to address the analytical strategies of qualitative research and statistical analysis.

2. Selection of Participants :

About 500 brochures were dispatched to the various Universities, Colleges and the Academic institutions all over India. To invite the applications, information was also displayed on the website (www.iisu.ac.in).

The Course received on overwhelming response from the Research Scholars from all over India. In all about 100 applications were received, out of which 50 research Scholars were selected. While selecting the participants following issues were taken into consideration:

• First Come First Serve Basis
• Preference given to SC, ST and Minority
• The selection insured adequate coverage from different parts of the country. 

The participants represented Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Baba Saheb Bheemrao ambedkar University, Luckhnow, Banasthali University, Tonk, Gurunanak Dev University, Amritsar, Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Thiruvananthapuram, Nehru Gram Bharti University, Allahabad, Punjab Technical University, Chandigarh, Rajeev Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development, Sriperumbudur, Swami Ramanad Teerth Marathwads University, Maharashtra, Avinashilingam Institute for home Science and Higher education for Women, Tamil Nadu and The IIS University, Jaipur. (Appendix -1: List of Participants along with their Addresses) 

3. Course Content and the Faculty  :

The inaugural session of the course was graced by such luminaries from the field of education as Dr. Ashok Gupta, Vice-Chancellor, the IIS University, who gave the welcome address, Prof. Vinay Kumar Srivastava from Delhi University was the key-note speaker of the session, Prof. Ramesh Dadhich, Member Secretary, ICSSR, New Delhi delivered the presidential address, Dr. Subhash Garg, Dean and Director, CRIT, The IIS University, acquainted the august gathering with the aims and objectives of the course as well as the activities of CRIT and Dr. Raakhi Gupta, Rector & Registrar, The IIS University proposed a vote of thanks.

Eminent academicians from various Institutions of repute from all over India like

• Prof. Vinay Kumar Srivastava, Delhi University
• Prof. Gurjeet Singh, Vice Chancellor, National Law University, Gauhati
• Prof. Som Deo, Director-Administration & Planning, ICSSR, New Delhi
• Prof. Prabhat pankaj, Director, Jaipuria Institute of management, Jaipur
• Prof. Balwinder Singh Saini, Gurunanak Dev University, Amritsar
• Dr. Ajay Singh, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, Delhi
• Dr. Neeraj Kaushik, NIT, Kurukshetra
• Prof. Amita Sharma, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur
• Dr. Sanket Viz, Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak
• Prof. G.C. Tikkiwal, Jai Narayan Vyas University Jodhpur
• Prof. G.S. Kevalramani, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur
• Prof. N.D. Mathur, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur
• And Prof. Nisha Yadav, The IIS University, Jaipur

Were the resource persons for the various technical sessions.

These experts apprised the participants on qualitative and quantitative research, focusing upon the research design, formulation of research problems, hypothesis Testing, sampling, types of sampling, correlation, regression usage of Dummy variables in regression and factor Analysis.

The key Highlights of the course were :

• Hands on training with SPSS and Excel
• Discussion on application of various statistical tools
• Field Study and
• Research Quiz

Some of the econometric issues like Multicollinearity, Autocorrelation and problem of heteroscedasticity were also addressed during the sessions.

To understand and learn the practical implications of research, it was mandatory for the participants to undertake a field study on the IIS University Campus, which was followed by the presentations on the last day. The course concluded with an extremely informative session by Prof. Gurjeet Singh, on “how to write an effective research report”. This concluding session was followed by a feedback session from the participants.

It was a learning experience for all. The contributions of various resource persons to the course were invaluable and of immense intellectual significance. (Appendix-2 : Detailed Time Table)

4. Write –up  on Practical Sessions/Field Trips etc  :

5. Detailed Report

   DAY 1

   Day 1 started with registration of the participants from different states of the country .Registration was followed by the inaugural session. Dr. Ashok Gupta, Vice Chancellor, the IIS University welcomed the esteemed guest and the participants. Dr.Ashok Gupta took the participants through the growth of IISU and emphasized the importance of research.

   Dr. SubhashGarg, Dean and Director, CRIT highlighted the aims and objectives of the course. He also talked about CRIT and other upcoming sessions during the period of 10 days.

   The key note address was delivered by Prof.Vinay Kumar Srivastava, Dept of Anthroplogy, University of Delhi. Prof. V.K Shrivastava, in his address highlighted Feminist Ethnography and critical aspects in social research

   The presidential address was delivered by Prof. Ramesh Dadhich, Member Secretary ICSSR. Prof. Dadhich focused on increasing scope in the field of research in Social Sciences and also explained the role of ICSSR in motivating the young researchers.

   The ceremony was concluded by Rector and Registrar Dr.Rakhi Gupta’s Vote of thanks.

   The post lunch sessions were addressed by Dr. Vijay Kumar Srivastava in A.V Hall of ICG campus, where he highlighted upon the concept of Research Methodology and discussed research questions. He then apprised the participants on Social Science and Social Facts. He also discussed the philosophy of Max Weber. He then had a one to one session with participants and later addressed their  questions and queries.

   DAY 2

   Session I:

   Session I on day two of research methodology course commenced with an interactive session by Dr. Amita Sharma from University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. The session focused on the ‘Type of Research Design : Exploratory, Diagnostic and Descriptive “

   The highlights of the session were:

6. What is research and why do we conduct it?
7. The lecture focused on research methods and research methodology
8. Talked about the types of research studies namely fundamental, applied, descriptive, historical etc
9. Research process was discussed under the following heads defining a research problem, research design, collecting data etc.
10. Types of research design were studied under the heads: Exploratory, descriptive and casual relationships
11. Further the session highlighted the significance of research Design in industry, economics, sociology etc.

Session II:

Dr Amita Sharma Continued her session. She discussed on research design in detail in post tea session.

She gave various examples to describe the concepts in detail. Later before winding up the session she answered all the questions been raised by the participants.

Session III:.

Dr. Sanket Vij, from Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak conducted the Post lunch session. Dr. Sanket Vij gave the participants a glimpse as to how an idea of research can be generated and how to proceed with research. He highlighted the essentials of review of literature, Data cleanliness, Data normalization and Data editing.

He emphasized on the importance of the review of literature and how it is essential to conduct a good research work .Under following heads he covered up the entire session:

• How to increase the quality of research by referring various online books and sites available.
• Discussed about the present scenario of research.
• Covered various ethical aspects to be followed while doing the research and writing the thesis.
• Difference between references and bibliography.
• He also discussed about the importance of use of various references and also emphasized that one must consult the expert of the field to upgrade the research work.
• He also explained the collaborative research and its importance and how it is useful to the society.

Session IV:

He further highlighted more on the research methodology. He discussed the tools of data collection-Primary and secondary data, Interview, observation etc.

Proceeding towards the end, he also apprised the participants with SPSS.

He enlightened participants on the basic operations in SPSS. He then gave a practical training of working on these two views on SPSS software to all the participants. In the end Dr. Sanket Vij interacted with the scholars and solved their problems. He ended the session by concluding on a note that “It is not require to write forty articles/books instead researchers should  one quality work which is worth forty”.

DAY 3

Session I:

Day three of the Research Methodology workshop session began with the informative lecture of Prof. G.C.Tikkiwal from Jai Narayan Vyas University Jodhpur. The focus of the session was on Descriptive statistics : Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion.

The Highlights of the session were:

• Importance of statistics in research
• Mathematical calculations of the following : Averages or Measures of Central Tendency : Arithmetic Mean, Median, Mode, Geometric Mean, Harmonic mean

In the end of the session Prof. Tikkiwal addressed participants and online queries

Session II:

During session II, Prof Tikkiwal started his lecture by discussing concept of  Standard deviation specifically in case of unorganized data. He gave various numerical exercises to the participants to provide them clarity on the various aspects of measures of dispersion.

He shared the short cut and easiest way of applying the formulas in the research findings. Then he progressed the session further and discussed Coefficient of Variation. He also covered sampling and sampling types in the session. He concluded the session by explaining how to select the right sample size.

Session III:

The post lunch session was taken over by Dr. PC GUPTA; He began his explanation with the term ‘RESEARCH’. He followed it by explaining Research Methodology. His session highlighted the conceptual framework of Research and ways to implement them in research work. The main highlights of his session were.

• Types of questionnaires, formation of questions in a questionnaire
• Identifying variables and attributes in a research plan
• Formation of class intervals and selection of appropriate class interval for accuracy of results 
• Categories of variables and selection method

In the end of the session, he addressed online questions and also had a one to one session with participants present.

Session IV:

Prof. P.C. Gupta discussed the concepts of hypothesis and level of significance. In his enlightened session he briefly discussed about framing the hypothesis and how to choose the level of significance.

He further enamurated the classification of hypothesis i.e null, alternative , simple composite, two sided and one sided.He covered up types of error that occur while testing.

DAY 4

Session I:

Day four of the course began with the illustrative lecture by Dr. P.C Gupta.

The lecture was in continuation of the previous lecture of hypothesis: Concept and Types, Formulation of Hypothesis.

He took over the detailed discussion of the following concepts

1. One Sample problem : ‘z’test , ‘t’ test, paired test
2. Two Sample  Problem : ‘t’test, ‘z’ test
3. Analysis of variance test ( ANOVA)

Session II:

In this session, Dr. P.C Gupta discussed ANOVA. He explained the critical difference analysis and how it is used. He covered critical bar diagram and the arrangement in order of their magnitude. Dr. Gupta further proceeded by discussing about various categories of data analysis: Chi square test,‘t’ test. He explained the important assumptions of these tests. In the end, he had a one to one session with the participant and solved their queries.

Session III:

The post lunch session of the day was conducted by Dr. G. C. Tikkiwal of Jai Narayan Vyas University, Jodhpur. This session was completely dedicated towards explaining the concept of Regression and Correlation

The session began with highlighting the difference between stratified sampling and clustered sampling and their utility and the constraints that must be kept in mind while applying them. 
He introduced the participants with the importance of models in applied sciences for future predictions. For the same he explained simple correlation coefficient, bivariate random sampling & scatter plots.Karl Pearson’s coefficient was also taken up. For qualitative values spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was explained to the class. In this session linear regression models were also discussed in detail.

Session IV:

Prof. N.D. Mathur University of Rajasthan explained the importance field study.

Objective of Field study was to :-

• Promote experimental learning
• Polish and enhance evaluating skills of the participants.

In the end of the session giving emphasis on the practical field study Prof. Mathur divided the participants of workshop in seven groups and asked them to choose a topic of research and then start doing a short research on that topic using all the research methods and submit the report on the last day of the course.

Prof. Mathur ended the session with a note “The Research is milk not a medicine”.

Field Work Assignment

DAY 5

Session I:

Day 5 of Research Methodology course began by welcoming Prof Kewal Ramani (retd), from University of Rajasthan. He started the discussion by highlighting what is research and what are its                                                 types: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed. Following topics were covered in the session:

1) Qualitative and quantitative research design, its nature.

2) Research paradigm

3) Phenomenological Research

He explained the concept by showing the slides to the participants and taking few case studies for explains the nature of the Qualitative and Quantitative Research. In the end of the session, he gave the assignment to the participants for conducting a Phenomenological Research.

Session II:

The II session on the 5^th day was taken by Dr. Balwinder K. Saini of Gurunanak Dev University, Amritsar. The session started with the prerequisites of computing data.

He guided the students that the data entered in SPSS must be scale data, i.e. all kinds of parametric and non-parametric tests must be possible to be computed on it.

He explained the difference between Nominal Data, Ordinal Data and scale Data. He also pointed out that parametric values are based on natural numbers and non-parametric tests are based on artificial numbers or values that the researcher assigns them.

He also discussed the difference between cross sectional data (when various variables are studied at the same time), panel data (when variables vary across sections and time) and time scale data (when time varies).

In the end he encouraged all the students to study passionately and be confident about their research and always be eager to learn as much as possible

Session III:

Dr. Balwinder K. Saini provided the practical knowledge on the basics of SPSS to research scholars. In his lecture he covered several topics related to SPSS. He explained the forms of variables like Nominal, Ordinal and Scale variables. He explained to research scholars that how we can calculate data and can apply different tests using SPSS like t-test, f-test, z-test etc. He also talked about the data view and variable view in SPSS. He explained Data View as in this we enter the data for which we want to apply the test. Lastly he concluded the session by providing key points about the practical use of SPSS to the research scholars.

Session IV:

Dr. Balwinder K. Saini explained the detailed and practical knowledge of testing hypothesis on the software SPSS. He further enumerated the types of sample and test which are generally applicable to them.

After giving some basic information about the hypothesis testing, he gave some more practical knowledge of using SPSS to the participants. With the very good quality of interacting with students he gave a very enlightened and knowledgeable session and made the session interesting for the participants.

DAY 6

Session I

Day 6 of the course work began with an enriching session by Dr. G.S Kevalramani. Dr. Kevalramani gave the similarities between Ethno Methodology and Ethnographic Research and also explained the methods of Ethno Methodology and its procedure. He then discussed about the Ethnographic Research, its types, role, methodological components, field work, filed notes procedure and challenges

Session II:

The 2^nd session was conducted by Dr. Balwinder K. Saini. The session began with the topic “sources of information for researches”. On the problem of selection of topic he suggested that it is always advised for the researches that they must first find out the material available on their topic. He emphasized upon the role of internet as a good supplement for researcher in their studies. He introduced ‘SCOPUS’ to participants as a source of authentic data. Dr. Saini emphasized on model-building. The session was mostly practical and the various tests were demonstrated and later done in the lab by the participants.

Session III

Prof G.C tikkiwal in his session discussed about Normal Distribution and Large Sample Test. Before explaining the Normal Distribution and Large Sample Test he discussed about the Hypotheses formulation i.e. Null Hypothesis and Alternative or Action Hypothesis. He also discussed in the session the types of Errors, One Tailed Test, Two Tailed Test, level of Significance, Z-Test, T-Test etc. In the end of the session he solved the queries of the research scholars.

Session IV

In 4th session Prof. G.C. Tikkiwal explained about few non-parametric tests which researchers can apply for analyzing there research work. He enumerated various practical examples of each test so that researchers can easily understand the use of each test. In the session he also explained the participants in detail about of ANOVA, types of ANOVA and Mann-Whitney’s U test, Wilcoxon test. Prof. Tikkiwal ended the knowledgeable session by giving some practical examples of each test.

DAY 7

Session I:

The first session on the day 7 was taken by Dr. G.S. Kevalramani. He started his session with case study in social science research; this method is used in both quantitative and qualitative research.

After this next topic discussed by Dr. Ramani was what theory is, concept formation and elements of theory, variable types: measurement based and then function based and also identifying variable type. He also talked about grounded theory introduced by Glaser and Strauss in 1960. Then he pointed out the important characteristics of grounded theory and when this type of research can be used. After this he mentioned the procedure of conducting grounded theory. He also compared qualitative approaches. Dr. Ramani also mentioned about data analysis software like N-Vivo and SPSS. Dr Ramani concluded his session by answering participant’s queries.       

Session II:

The next Two sessions were  taken by Dr. Neeraj Kaushik, NIT, Kurukshetra. He explained the methods of collecting data and Explained the Questionnaire formation i.e. Close and Open ended questionnaire. He further in the session explained about likert scale, ordinal scale, chi-test etc. He made participants aware about the Normal curve, Platikurtic curve and Laptokurtic curves. He discussed which analysis should be taken as per the situation.

Session III:

The post lunch session of the Research Methodology course work was taken by Dr. Neeraj Kaushik in continuation of the IInd session. In this, he discussed the types of sampling: Probability and Non-Probability sampling.In his session he explained Random, Stratified and Cluster sampling. He further gave participants knowledge on as to how sample size shall be selected in relation to size of population and which kind of sampling shall be used for finite and infinite population. He also briefed the participants about parametric and non-parametric test, dependent and independent variables.

Lastly he provided several references and links from which research scholars can easily get detailed matter, published papers, journals, researches on the topics on which they want to pursue their research.

Session IV:

Prof. Nisha Yadav the IIS University enumerated in detail about the measurement scales with suitable examples which researchers can use while making their questionnaire and measuring the variables in suitable way.

Prof. Nisha Yadav in her session covered up in detail the following:

• Defined measurement , need for correct measurement technique to be used
• Difference between Qualitative Measurement and Quantitative measurement
• Criteria for a good measurement
• Levels of measurement
• Some commonly used scales: Cumulative, thrustone, summated etc.

In the end of the session Prof. Nisha Yadav enumerated that a researcher should choose the measurement scales appropriately.

DAY 8

Session I:

Prof. Pankaj Prabhat started the session with a discussion about SPSS. He discussed and shared the data files to be used for analysis in detail, then he discussed the steps of running regression on SPSS. Along with this Prof. Parbaht Pankaj pointed out the meaning of statistically significance and then discussed inferential statistics based on inferences. In the end he explained mahalanobis and cook’s distance.

Session II:

The second session of the 8^th day was also taken by Prof. Prabhat Pankaj, Jaipuria Institute of Management. The entire session was technical, where he demonstrated us how to certain operations with the help of examples. The topics he took for discussion are:

1. How to remove outlier from the data.
2. Use of log to normalize the data.
3. Checking data using scatter plot.
4. ‘Split File’ option to organize data in desired format.
5. Linear regression with co linearity diagnostic, Part and Partial correlations.
6. Multi-co linearity which should be step-wise.
7. Dummy regression for quantitative data.
8. Importing file from SPSS to excel.
9. Chow test to check regression.

In the session he demonstrated the steps to the participants which were done by the latter then. He also suggested a book namely- Econometrics by Damodar N. Gujarati. With the continuance of session 2^nd and 3^rd in today’s 4^th session Prof. PrabhatPankaj enumerated the meaning of factor analysis and its use in SPSS software. He further explained the use of factor analysis on the SPSS software so that researcher can apply it in their research analysis.

In the end Prof. Prabhat Pankaj solved the research scholar’s problems related to the using of SPSS software.

DAY 9

Session I

Prof. N.D. Mathur started the session by discussing the journey of a researcher from unconscious known.

He explained the components of a research report, there are 8 components namely abstract, introduction, review of literature, hypotheses, methods, results, conclusion, discussion, references and bibliography.

Then he discussed the dos and donts of writing a research report.

He concluded his talk by mentioning about the checklist for revising a draft and characteristics of a good research report.

Session II

The sessions were taken by Dr. Ajay Singh Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University. His main focus was on the References in report writing. He discussed in detail with research scholars that how they should write a reference and bibliography for their research. Which style they can use in writing their reference and bibliography some of the styles he talked about are :

•  Modern Language Association (MLA)
• American Psychological Association (APA)
• Chicago Press Manual Style

He also explained the research scholars that how we can generate the references and bibliography in MS-Office using different styles.

He solved the queries of research scholars related to their reference and bibliography section.

He concluded the session by providing key points on references and bibliography to the research scholars.

Session-III

A written quiz on Research Methodology was conducted by the course coordinators to evaluate the participants. (Appendix-3: Quiz Sheet)

Session–IV

Prof. Somdeo briefly discussed about how to write a report in proper and effective way. Prof. also explained the wrong effects of not writing a report properly.

Steps of making a research report:-

• Firstly, a researcher has to generate a research idea.
• Then articulate it.
• Write a statement of the problem and conceptualize it.
• Select weather a report will be micro or macro.
• Create objectives of the study.
• Create Hypotheses.
• Write Scope of the Research
• Review of literature.
• Research Methodology.
• Make a research plan.
• Identify Research tools.
• Chapterization
• References.

After explaining that how to write a report effectively. He. shared some useful information with the researcher’s about the ICSSR and the schemes which ICSSR is providing to research scholars and all those who are in the field of academics.

Prof. Somdeo ended on a note that “ If a research degree/Ph.D. degree has been earned then it is awardable”.

DAY 10

First session of the day was the field report presentation by the participants.

Second session was conducted by Prof. Gurjeet Singh on “How to write on academic Research Paper”. He was welcomed by Dr. Subhash Garg. His session began with general observations that must be made for a good paper.

They were :

1. Identification formulation of a research problem
2. Selection of an appropriate problem and it proper formulation
3. A faulty selection may fail to sustain a research

quoted Merton “ it is often more difficult to find and formulate a research problem then solve it.” He enumerated that the 3 main sources of identifying a research problem:

1. Research supervisors: who is a guiding force and an inspiration
2. Reviews of literature: to find research gap, upto date knowledge, developing reading habit
3. Research funding Agency: reduces financial burden and becomes source of encouragement

He also mentioned 2 broad approaches to problem foundation i.e. inductive and deductive. He also touched upon the topic of report writing that as it is a product of our own work, hence it must be written neatly and correctly following all the set norms. It should include all the parts i.e. preliminaries, Text and References. The session was very interactive.

Valedictory session started with a valedictory note by Dr. Subhash garg.

Few of the participants shared their experiences during the course.

This was followed by distribution of certificates to the participants and prizes to the winners of Quiz.

After distribution of certificates Prof. Gurjeet Singh addressed the participants sharing his experiences of research and the importance of research methodology with the research scholars.

5.  Evaluation by Participants :

Feedback on the session was taken from the Participants after every session (Appendix-4 :  Feedback Scores of Resource Persons).  Overall Feedback of the Participants was also taken at the end of the course. The participants appreciated the manner in which the course was conducted by The IIS University. The found the course very relivent in terms of course contents and persentatiions. Some of the participants requested to conduct the advance course on Research Methodology on the similar pattern. Some of the participants fournd that the schedule of the course was very tight. All the Participants were happy and satisfiede at the end of the course. 

6.  Course Director’s Suggestions/Recommendations :

- The organizing institute should have liberty in finalizing the course contents

- The number of practical session should be given more weightage

- Similar courses training the students on the other software like E-views, Metlab, Stata should also be duly sanctioned by ICSSR.

Dr. Subhash Garg

Dean & Director

CRIT, The IIS University, Jaipur