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Prof.V.Sudhakar
Dean &Director
The English and Foreign Languages University
Hyderabad-500 007

Foreword

The fact that research in education and teacher education in the higher education
institutions across the country has no relevance to our contexts and societies is compelling
us to rethink about the disciplinary and institutional research practices in our universities.
The ongoing crisis in educational research is very complex and there are multiple factors
contributing to such serious and problematic situation. One of the important factors of
this crisis is the dearth of space for the theoretical and intellectual exposure in teacher
education institutions. One can hardly find teachers and students participating in deep
intellectual discussions and debates.

The existing curricular practices in teacher education institutions are centered on the
dominant positivist and pragmatic concerns. We hardly find faculty and students
responding to the day-to-day conditions prevailing in the communities and social life.
The positivist‐pragmatic thinking in educational research practice has encompassed and
imprisoned the actions of teachers and students in disciplinary frames and institutional
structures. This dominant framework of thinking is designed to create a class of
researchers to complacently reproduce the programmed way of thinking.

Another area of concern is the composition of institutional clientele, i.e. the academics
and students who undertake and engage in research activities either to improve their
curriculum vitae or to enhance their qualifications by submitting a dissertation or thesis as
part of their doctoral research work. The research, which is, therefore, likely to be
undertaken by persons to improve their career is constrained by time and cost. The
institutionalization of these characteristics and values has influenced the style of research
and the modes of knowledge production, distribution and application.

Majority of the research activities in the universities are focused only upon the ‘how -to‐
do‐it’ tasks of data collection and analysis. Teachers and researchers of these institutions
are of the opinion that research is a series of techniques in statistics, testing procedures or
context‐free observations or concepts. The focus, relying solely on techniques,
procedures and time, cost and distance has produced certain limitations in the conduct of
inquiry. And the knowledge generated in higher education research has become largely
counter‐productive and irrelevant to the needs of the practicing teachers, schools and
society. Therefore, what we conceive, define, identify, think, as research in higher
education is open to question.

Supervisors of doctoral students generally instruct students to confine themselves to

certain structures and templates of presentation of thesis. Again within this structure
they also prescribe how to present things before the field work itself. For example, what
to include in the chapters of the thesis is, by and large, fixed and decided in advance, i.e.
before the field work. Instead of training scholars in critical ways of looking at the objects
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of investigation, reflecting on the field under study and relooking at the problematic
aspects of the issues under consideration, the recognized official supervisors encourage
student– researchers to copy from textual material i.e., from printed books, even
sometimes without quoting and making references. Since it is very easy to copy rather
than presenting the problematic issues of the topic selected for the study, the student and
supervisor collectively commit such an offence and silently share the thesis in their
communities of researchers for official and institutional certification and authentication.

The other important aspect in such communal activities is the way the methodological
procedures are worked out and rationalized in the doctoral thesis and research reports. In
order to demonstrate the scientificity of the work, the researchers adopt certain techniques
of sampling, methods of standardization of tools and statistical data analysis techniques.
For example, in order to test whether there is any relationship between the variables, the
scholars apply, under the guidance of the supervisor, the statistical tests indiscriminately
without looking at what kind of data they are addressing. In order to show the hypotheses
testing statistics, they blindly adopt certain tests and share the same with their co-
examiners for adjudication and authentication. By using statistics and an impersonal style
of writing techniques they try to establish the objectivity of their research work. In other
words, by following the rules―that reduce data to statistics and sampling
techniques―they believe that objectivity can be achieved in the course of investigation.
The other modes of conceptualization and action that are intuitive, descriptive and
anecdotal are not considered as scientific and objective procedures.

The other important fact is that in universities very few texts are considered as canonical,
scientific and trustworthy. What is interesting to note here is that such canonical texts
prescribed by the expert faculty would govern and regulate the everyday research practice
of these institutions. Teachers and researchers follow very few textbooks without
questioning the basic premises and assumptions of the authors. Mechanical rule-following
strategies over a period of time have damaged our institutions of teacher education. We
hardly find any innovative and original research in these so-called institutions of higher
learning. Such entire crisis is clearly visible not only in the institutional and individual
research work but also in the production and dissemination of textbooks of research
methods in education.

The above discussion would drive us to recognize the importance of producing multiple
meaningful texts in research, which can enable faculty, students and researchers to
understand the complexities of scientific research and transform them as valuable
researchers with rigor and precision.

The author, Dr.Vidyasagar, has made a humble attempt in this book to uncover the
complexities of research processes by explicating the difficult areas and addressing
problematic issues in research. The author rightly recognizes that research design and
statistical analysis are interdependent. Through his unique style of writing the author
introduced a wide variety of common analysis tools and practical examples in order to be
able to correctly understand the complexities of the real-world data. This book is an
invaluable resource for faculty, students and researchers in education and also in social
sciences.
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Dr.Vidyasagar encourages the readers by making them able to engage themselves in

statistical issues and problems. This book covers all the important aspects of research
methodology and gives the readers a clear understanding of the basic research techniques.
This book is approachable and easy to use as an important resource for solving problems
in educational research. All the chapters of this book have theoretical orientation and
highlight the conceptual framework and applications in right perspective.

This book would significantly contribute to the mainstream research and address all the
vital facets of emerging concepts and clarity. This work, I strongly believe, is an essential
document for professional researchers, faculty, students and anyone involved in
educational research. I take the opportunity to request the readers of this text to forward
their critical observations and problems experienced while applying the techniques and
methods explicated by the author for the purpose of enriching the subject matter,
improving the style of presentation and for placing updated versions before the
institutions of higher learning in future.



Prof.V.Sudhakar