Importance of Quality Research

Research is made up of two words: Re- search. This means that an individual has embarked on a journey of searching again. Research leads to creation of new body of knowledge or adding to the existing one. This unfolds the importance of doing research. Academicians all over the world have been indulging in research as it has been made mandatory in educational institutions. Good quality research is hard to come by as more of the research is done with the purpose of replicating another research. Research is conducted either to create new theory or can also be contextualised in another country or segment. Earlier pure sciences were more into research but today social sciences research has caught on. Reputed publishers in the field of social sciences are Emerald, Inderscience, Elsevier, Sage, Springer to name a few. Within these various journals with Scopus and ABDC indexing along with impact factors determine the quality of research published. So, the next question is what is quality research? Quality research is a relative term which can be used to describe a research which is new, innovative and interesting. In fact, the reviewers have a key role to play in improving the quality of research. If their review guides the researcher in the right direction, a research can be improved to a large extend.

A research can be deemed as quality research if it happens to be systematic. Formulating the right kind of research questions is the key to a good start. The research questions should be clear, concise and can set the goal for research. The research methodology determines how the research will be carried out. A scientific approach has to be followed in determining the methodology. Although quantitative research has been popular over the years, qualitative research is also gaining popularity. Another way of conducting research is through a mixed method approach which involves both the qualitative and quantitative methods. The relevance of the research to the industry is equally important. If practitioners can use academic research to better reach out to customers, improve their working then definitely the research becomes relevant in the modern world. The research should also have significant theoretical contributions. After all the research should contribute to theory building exercise in its field.

 India as a country is lagging behind in producing good quality research. The education system has not been research -oriented and generally a person comes to know the nuances of research only in a PhD programme. If research is included rigorously in post graduate and even under graduate level, then perhaps, we could improve the quality of research in the country. UGC had set up norms of making research more attractive for faculty members in terms of promotions linked to quality research. Various accreditation councils like NAAC have also included points for research publications in their assessment of institutions.

Research is the backbone of education system in a society. The sooner we realise the importance of research the better it will be for us as an academia. Research empowers an individual and institutions should provide incentives for conducting quality research. Since research is time consuming, and requires a lot of effort on the part of the researcher, adequate motivation to conduct research will go a long way in improving the quality of research. Plagiarism checks have to be kept in order to avoid cut copy paste mentality. Sub standard journals and research work should be discouraged. Guidelines by apex organisations like UGC should be formulated for a proper research policy in the country. These measures could pave the way for quality research in India.

Dr. Sartaj Khera

Assistant Professor

Department of Management Studies