BASIC RESEARCH TERMINOLOGIES

BASIC RESEARCH TERMINOLOGIES

1. BASIC RESEARCH TERMINOLOGIES DR.MAHESWARI JAIKUMAR [email protected] ABSTRACT DATA VARIABLE CONCEPT OPERATIONAL DEFINITION SAMPLE ASSUMPTION POPULATION HYPOTHESES LIMITATIONS VALIDITY CONSTRUCT STUDTY SETTING

2. RESEARCH Research is defined as a systematic and scientific process to answer questions about facts and relationship between facts. It is an activity involved in seeking answer to unanswered questions.

3. RESEARCH Research seeks to generate an answer to the problems as well as suggesting additional questions in need of further inquiry.

4. RESEARCH Research is a scientific, systematic, controlled, orderly and objective investigation to develop, refine and expand body of knowledge.

5. ABSTRACT A clear, concise summary that communicates the essential information about the study. In research journals, it is usually located at the beginning of an article

6. DATA Units of information or any statistics, facts, figures, general material, evidence, or knowledge collected during the course of the study.

7. VARIABLES Attributes or characteristics that can have more than one value, such as height or weight. Variables are qualities or quantities, properties or characteristics of people, things, or situations that change or vary .

8. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE Variables that are purposely manipulated or changed by the researcher. It is also called as “ MANIPULATED VARIBLE”.

9. RESEARCH VARIABLE Refers to Qualities, Properties or Characteristics which are observed or measured in a natural setting without manipulating & establishing cause & effect relationship

10. DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES The characteristics & attributes of study subjects such as age, gender, place of living, educational status, religion, social class, marital status, occupation, income are considered as demographic variables.

11. EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES Are factors that are not the part of the study but may affect the measurements of the study variable .

12. OPERATIONAL DEFINITION Refers to the way in which the researcher defines the variables under investigation. Operational definition are stated in such way by the investigator specifying how the study variables will be measured in the actual research situation.

13. CONCEPT Refers to a mental idea of a phenomenon. Concepts are words or terms that symbolize some aspects of reality. E.g.. Love, pain.

14. CONSTRUCT Is a highly abstract & complex phenomenon ( concept) which is denoted by a made up or constructed term.

15. A construct term is used to indicate a phenomenon that cannot be directly observed but must be inferred by certain concrete or less abstract indicators of the phenomenon. E.g. self esteem.

16. PROPOSITION A Proposition is a statement or assertion of the relationship between concepts. E.g., relationship between anxiety and performance.

17. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Interrelated concepts or abstractions that are assembled together in some rational scheme by virtue of their relevance to a common theme. It is also referred to as theoretical framework.

18. ASSUMPTION Basic principle that is being true on the basis of logic or reason, without proof or verification.

19. HYPOTHESIS A statement of the predicted relationship between two or more variables in a research study; an educated or calculated guess by the researcher.

20. LITERATURE REVIEW A critical summary or research on a topic of interest, generally prepared to put a research problem in context or to identify gaps and weaknesses in prior studies so as to justify a new investigation.

21. LIMITATIONS Restrictions in a study that may decrease the credibility and generalizability of the research findings.

22. MANIPULATION An intervention or treatment introduced by the researcher in an experimental or quasi experimental study; the researcher manipulates the independent variable to assess its impact on the dependent variable.

23. POPULATION The entire set of individuals or objects having some common characteristic(s) selected for a research study is referred to as population .

24. TARGET POPULATION The entire population in which the researchers are interested and to which they would like to generalize the research findings.

25. ACCESSIBLE POPULATION The aggregate of cases that conform to designated inclusion or exclusion criteria and that are accessible as subjects of the study.

26. RESEARCH SETTING The study setting is the location in which the research is conducted. It could be natural, partially controlled environment or laboratories.

27. SAMPLE A part or subset of population selected to participate in the research study.

28. REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE A sample whose characteristics are highly similar to that of the population from which it is drawn.

29. SAMPLING The process of selecting sample from the target population to represent the entire population.

30. PROBABILITY SAMPLING The selection of subjects or sampling units from a population using random procedure; E.g., Simple random Sampling, Stratified random Sampling.

31. NON PROBABILITY SAMPLING The selection of subjects or sampling units from a population using non random procedure. E.g., Convenient Sampling, Purposive Sampling.

32. RELIABILITY The degree of consistency or accuracy with which an instrument measures the attributes it is designed to measure.

33. VALIDITY The degree to which an instrument what it is intended to measure.

34. PILOT STUDY Study carried out at the end of the planning phase of research in order to explore and test the research elements to make relevant modifications in research tools and methodology .

35. ANALYSIS Method of organizing , sorting, and scrutinizing data in such a way that research question can be answered or meaningful inferences can be drawn.

36. BASIC RESEARCH TERMINOLOGIES DR.MAHESWARI JAIKUMAR [email protected] ABSTRACT DATA VARIABLE CONCEPT OPERATIONAL DEFINITION SAMPLE ASSUMPTION POPULATION HYPOTHESES LIMITATIONS VALIDITY CONSTRUCT STUDTY SETTING