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There are several reasons why people do research:

1. Gaining Knowledge
In daily life most people conduct research to gain knowledge. Conducting research to gain

knowledge is most often conducted by newcomers or ‘new members’ (Wenger, 1998) who are entering

a new context (e.g. workplace, culture, area, etc). To some extent, the research gives a security blanket
and opens a passage to enter that new territory.

2. Finding the Effectiveness of Doing an Activity

McKay (2006) asserts that for teachers, research can contribute to more effective teaching

not by offering definitive answer to pedagogical dilemmas and questions. Rather, by suggesting new

ways of looking at something. In other words, the contribution of research to teaching is not by giving a
prescriptive formula or recipe for effective teaching that the teacher must follow. But, the process of

research will give teachers understanding of the topic being researched and based on that understanding

will help teachers in developing their teaching competence.
3. Evaluating Existing Knowledge

The most common reason for doing research is to evaluate existing knowledge. This can be in

the forms of replicating a study or just following the same methodology but with different participants or
in a different context of the study. The purpose of this kind of study is to explore if the same findings will

also emerge in a different context. This kind of research is encouraged for beginning researchers.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF RESEARCH

There are many approaches to dealing with research. Two of the most common are known as

quantitative and qualitative (Burns, 1990).

Quantitative research generally starts with an experimental design in which a hypothesis

is followed by the quantification of data and some sort of numerical analysis is carried out (e.g., a study
comparing student test results before and after an instructional treatment).

Qualitative studies, on the other hand, generally are not set up as experiments; the data

cannot be easily quantified and the analysis is interpretive rather than statistical.

Table 1 Characteristics of quantitative and qualitative research

Quantitative Qualitative