We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4
Nature of Inquiry
and Research
There are many things you want to know in this world. People, things, places,
events—their characteristics or qualities make you wonder continuously, frequently,
or intermittently. Marveling at them, you tend to immerse yourself in a situation
where you seem to be grappling with a problem or a puzzle. Questions after
questions on the many aspects of the object of your curiosity prod you to move, act,
or do something to find answers to your questions or to discover truths about your
inferences or speculations on such object. Behaving like an investigator; asking and
seeking answers to some questions about the thing you find puzzling indicates the
true nature of inquiry or research.
LESSON1 Inquiry vs. Research: A Review
Intended Learning Outcomes
After this lesson, you should be able to:
1. relate an unfamiliar term with other terms to discover the meaning of such
- difficult term;
2. explain the meaning of research in relation to inquiry;
3. point out the similarities and differences of research and inquiry;
4, distinguish lower-level questions from top-level questions to give stress to
investigative kind of thinking;
5. judge the applicability of inquiry or research to a.given situation; and
6. _ appraise the value of concepts learned about inquiry and research.INQUIRY vs. RESEARCH: A REVIEW
Nature of Inquiry and Research
One goal of education is knowledge acquisition. However, education is not
just stocking your brain with knowledge, but it also encourages you to use acquired
knowledge for a deeper understanding of the world—an understanding that inspires
you to create, construct, or produce things for the betterment of not only your own life,
but of the whole world as well. How is this possible?
Inquiry, a term that is synonymous with the word ‘investigation,’ is the answer
to this question. When you inquire or investigate, you tend to ask questions tg
probe or examine something. You do this kind of examination through your HOTS
or higher-order thinking strategies of inferential, analytical, critical, creative, and
appreciative thinking to discover more understandable or meaningful things
beyond such object of your inquiry. Thinking in this manner makes you ask open-
ended questions to elicit views, opinions, and beliefs of others in relation to your
Tesearch. (Small 2012)
Characteristics of Research
”
" Research is a scientific, experimental, or inductive manner of thinking. Starting
from particular to more complex ideas, you execute varied thinking acts that range
from lower-order to higher-order thinking strategies reflected by these research
activities: identifying the topic or problem, gathering data, making theories,formulating hypotheses, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions. Cognitively
driven terms like empirical, logical, cyclical, analytical, critical, methodical, and
replicable are the right descriptive words to characterize research. These powerful
modifiers that your previous research subject, Practical Research 1, explained to a
certain extent, are the very same terms to characterize any quantitative research you
intend to carry out this time.
The data you work on in research do not come mainly from yourself but also
from other sources of knowledge like people, books, and artworks, among others,
Hence, one cardinal principle in research is to give acknowledgment to owners of
all sources of knowledge involved in your research work. Giving crédit to people
from whom you derived your data is your way of not only thanking the authors
of their contribution to the field, but also establishing the validity and reliability of
the findings of your research that ought to serve as instrument for world progress.
(Muijs 2011; Ransome 2012)
Methods of Research
To be a researcher is to be a scientist, who must think logically or systematically;
thatis, your research activities must follow a certain. order, like doing inductive thinking
that makes you ponder cific ideas first, then move to more complex concepts
like conclusions or generalizations, Or, do the opposite of inductive thinking which
‘is deductive thinking that Tets you start from forming generalizations to examinin
details about the subject matter. These are not the only approaches, though, that you
can adhere to in planning your research work. Depending on your topic and purpose,
you are free to choose from several approaches, methods, and types of research you
learned in your previous research subject, Practical Research 1. (Gray 2011; Sharp 2012)
Inquiry vis-a-vis Research
One scholarly activity that greatly involves inquiry is research. Similar to inquiry
that starts from what you are ignorant about, research makes you learn something
by means of a problem-solving technique. Both inquiry and research encourage you
to formulate questions to direct you to the exact information you want to discover
Mitre to find out whatae Riven between or among the compartments or folded
parts of his/her clothes. Although the core word for both inquiry and research is
investigation or questioning, they are not exactly the same in all aspects. Research
includes more comple; of investigation than inquiry because the former follows
a scientific procedure of discovering truths or meanings about things in this world.
(Goodwin 2014; Lapan 2012)Comprehension Check
Directions: Explain your understanding of inquiry and research by answering the
foll
a Rw Nv
a
N
10.
wing questions.
Compare and contrast Inquiry and Research.
Which is easier to carry out: Inquiry or Research? Give reasons for your
answer.
How can a researcher be a scientist?
What if you do things randomly in research, what will be the consequences?
Should you immediately concern yourself with data analysis prior to
research approach? Why? Why not?
Could Inquiry and Research go together? Explain your point.
What do you think of this line: Inquiry occurs completely with excessive
familiarity with the physical looks of an object?
Do these two words, Inquiry and Research, somehow indicate strength of
character?
Have you had an application of Inquiry and Research in your day-to-day
life? Explain.
Name some institutions or organizations that often engage themselves in
inquiry and research. Describe their ways of doing it.