There's No Hope For Doing Perfect Research

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Owiti Paul Instructor: Course: January 16th, 2012 There is no Hope of Doing Perfect Research (Griffiths, 1998, P.97) Research refers to the study of a subject, paying special attention to detail with the aim of discovering new information. The investigations are methodical and are for revising or establishing theories, discovering facts and using these facts to develop a plan of action. (McNeill and Chapman 23) It is a continuous process involving laborious hours, lots of money and the results are usually unpredictable. Research could be quantitative, meaning mathematical models, hypotheses and theories are developed with regard to phenomena or it could be qualitative. (McBurney and Theresa 45) Qualitative research aims to understand human behavior in-depth and not just what, where or when an activity takes place. This means that why and how decisions are made is the focus of investigation. Perfect research has little hope given the fact that various factors like variation in data can make researchers in different parts of the world make varying conclusions on the same subject. (McNeill and Chapman 29) The hope for perfect research keeps dwindling daily because of several important factors. First, the involvement of human beings means that error is inevitable. In addition, human thinking tends to sift through information, accepting some facts while rejecting other vital points. Secondly, the quality of research is determined by its optimality and its completeness. Completeness is achieved when data is collected from all possible sources while optimality, which is the correctness of the research, is achieved by discovering the most relevant information. (McBurney and Theresa 68) Human beings, after investing time and energy may achieve completeness but optimality remains insufficient. Another vital factor is time. Its variation determines the outcome of

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