The term “Research” refers to the continual reinvestigation of pre-existing information with an aim of attaining new knowledge. It is an activity through which man hopes to expose truths that are yet to be discovered or documented. Through this activity, man hopes to generate information which informs his actions and decisions, towards his own development.
Research finds its importance in the usefulness of the knowledge it creates; that is, in its ability to generate information that would help solve developmental challenges such as in the fields of medicine, economics, engineering, sociology, productivity etc. Information is useful in every sphere of life and must be updated if man is to advance.
There Is No Hope for a Perfect Research
According to (Griffiths, 1998), “there is no hope of doing a perfect research”. There are a number of reasons to support why this is so. First off, researchers are human beings whom by nature are imperfect. This imperfection combined with the fact that we operate in an imperfect world, leads to conclusion that the result of our investigative research will most likely be imperfect.
A number of approaches are available to research investigations, including, qualitative, quantitative, empirical, conceptual, descriptive and analytical research (Lichtman, 2009). It is near impossible to have a universally accurate approach to the same piece of investigative research, since each of these has its own limitations and pitfalls. Due to this “imperfect” nature of research approaches available, every research investigation leads to a series of counter-research activity, in a vicious cycle. Researched information raises questions over its own authenticity; hence, research cannot be perfect.
As man advances, his world changes with him. We live in a fast changing world. The variables measured in any piece of investigative research will continually change as other indirect/uncontrolled factors (e.g. time, weather,