Know Your Audience
A researcher always has a particular audience in mind when conducting a research study. Knowing one’s audience is as useful in research as it is in the practical world. People have been killed for no more mistake than saying true words in front of the wrong audience.
The institution of a student and people who are interested in the research findings usually make up the audience of a research work (Jain, 2019, p.6). The audience are the recipients of a research work.
After identifying one’s audience the researcher has to get awareness on the cultural and social boundaries that exist for his immediate audience. The immediate audience usually follows the research proceedings and use the findings to make specific steps or actions.
For academic purposes scoring a research work is the primary action of the immediate audience. A student should stay far from submitting a work that would be received with unease by whoever would be accrediting it.
While objectivity is the claim of many intellectuals, humans are generally wired to be prejudiced. Even the most objective of person would tilt towards protecting his sect or personal interest, this is why during the post electoral process there was a strain between two influential authors in Nigeria.
Despite the existing relationship of mentorship between Wole Soyinka and Chimamanda Adiche, they were at loggerheads concerning the proceedings of the election. They both spoke in favour of the presidential candidates that they had a tribal kinship with and made accusations against the opposing party.
“Investigating the Illiteracy of the Northern State of Nigeria as a Factor in the Minimal Literature Arising From That Region” as a research idea might not sit well with a professor who hails from the North. A topic at ill with the professor might burn down the cordial bridge that is supposed to exist between supervisor and supervisee.
Your audience in perspective during the selection process would also help eliminate ideas that would not be useful to your audience. Discussing the influence of Scotland’s geography in J.K Rowling’s novels would most likely not be of use to a Nigerian audience.
The purpose of a research is defeated if it does not attend to the people it was undertaken for, hence the research ideas have to be tailored to suit the audience.
Know Your research types.
Selecting a topic also entails having a mental navigation of how you want the research work to be. What type of research do you want to do?
There is a tendency to de-emphasize the individual preference of those doing the research work. A person’s preference for one research type over another can influence the topic selection process.
To be able to have a preference and determine if it is a deciding factor in their topic selection, students have to equip themselves with knowledge about the different research types.
When it comes to identifying the most suitable idea that would generate a topic there has to be foreknowledge on the types of research that would be suitable for different areas of interest. Investigation that requires more than a university student is willing to give should not be undertaken.
Knowing the different research types and approaches would help the student gain awareness of how they’d like their research to go. It is in keeping with the saying that to be forearmed is to be forewarned.
The different type of research as stated by Bairagi & Munot (2019) is glossed over below for students to understand what is being written about in this part.
Descriptive : Descriptive research includes fact finding interrogations and an appraisal of various information. It does not have control over parameters or variables, it just seeks to describe what already is status quo. If you’ve not found your voice as a researcher, you might be comfortable with a descriptive research.
Analytical: This research aims at illuminating a particular phenomenon. It makes use of already existing information to critically evaluate.
Applied: an applied research would concern itself with being applicable. It is a research carried out to effect a solution to an already existing problems.
Fundamental: A fundamental research seeks to add to the already existing body of knowledge. It basically involves finding information that has a broad base of application.
Conceptual: This research works on already established data. It involves analyzing concepts or ideas. The investigation done in this kind of research can lead to gaining more insight on an existing hypothesis or counter them.
Empirical: This is an action based research. It involves direct experimentation done by the researcher. It is a research that is largely hinged on observation and perception. The end of this kind of research is usually a discovery shared to the public.
Correlational: This research type explores how variables and incidents communicate with each other. It delves into two separate entity and how one informs the other.
Qualitative: qualitative research is defined by the way the entire research is focused on evaluating a phenomenon using non-measurable criteria. It is concerned with subjective assessment.
Quantitative: As the name implies, a quantitative research deals with phenomenon that can be quantified. It is based on the measurement of quantity. This type of research deals with data that can be expressed in numerical terms.
While this might not influence a student’s idea, it can influence the direction the idea is pulled to. A student who is interested in studying marxist works in Eastern Africa would know the research types available to him.
Equiped with knowledge of this he would be able to make adequate decisions between ideas. He could choose between “the prevalence of violence as an end game in the Marxist work of Ngugi wà thiongo” and “investigating how Marxism has influenced the tone of Ngugi wà thiongo’s plays” based on his preferred research type. Choosing the former implies going for quantitative and the later, qualitative.
