Ayooshi Mitra, Amity University Kolkata
Prologue
One of the greatest services provided by humans is the provision of education to those in utmost need. And in this process, the teachers play a critical role in shaping a child’s future under the disguise of a mentor, role model, or guide. For decades, India’s education system has remained largely unchanged, with no revolutionary attempts to improve the quality of material or delivery. If we talk about the state of research in our country, we will be shocked to see that it has not only failed to improve but has deteriorated dramatically—and both the government and educators share responsibility. Due to the country’s separation of teaching and research, entire generations of students have graduated from universities without producing a single original research paper.
The essence of undergraduate research
Undergraduate research is a broad term that encompasses scientific inquiry, creative activity, and other activities. The vital point is that the project generates some original work. Undergraduate research has numerous advantages, including real-world applications, research and professional experience, and improved relationships with faculty and peers. Students can learn to work and think independently, take intellectual risks, and initiative to solve problems rather than relying on experts for answers through these experiences.
Undergraduate research ecosystems are being reshaped across the country to introduce undergraduate students to scientific thinking, engage them in discovery-based science, and provide them with a comprehensive understanding of research opportunities. These improvements include emphasizing the importance of undergraduate research experiences in the classroom, developing concrete and practical initiatives to support research at the college level, and incorporating scientific writing and literature review into classroom instruction.
Challenges are opportunities to learn!
Undergraduate research projects provide students and professors with a one-of-a-kind experience, but they also present their own set of challenges. Professors who want to engage their undergraduate students in research are frequently confronted with difficult scenarios that arise during the project. Students may find the new work environment intimidating because research does not take place in a traditional classroom setting. According to a study, a survey conducted in 2018 showed that there were 161,412 students enrolled in PhD programs. This signifies less than 0.5 per cent of the country’s total higher education student enrollment, which includes students enrolled in universities, colleges, and institutes pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate degrees (Sengupta A, 2019).
One of the major challenges faced by the UG research students in India is the availability of data; before proceeding with the research, researchers must ensure that adequate data is available. Data are classified into two types: primary data, which is collected by the researchers through interviews, well-structured questionnaires, observations, and secondary data, which is already collected by someone else and can be obtained from government officials, or journals. There is often a lack of interaction between university research departments and businesses, government departments, and research institutions. Due to a lack of proper contacts, a large amount of primary data of a non-confidential nature remains unexplored by researchers. For better and more accurate research, efforts should be made to develop satisfactory liaisons among all parties involved. There is a need to develop some mechanisms for a university-industry interaction program so that academics can get ideas from practitioners on what needs to be researched and practitioners can put the academics’ research to use.
Researchers in our country face significant challenges due to a lack of scientific training in research methodology. There is a scarcity of qualified researchers. Most of the research is not conducted systematically. For many researchers and even their guides, research is mostly a replicable job with no insight into the materials gathered. The result is obvious: research findings frequently do not reflect reality. As a result, a thorough examination of research methodology is a must.
Universities and research funding agencies want to make sure that the research they fund, and support has the greatest possible impact. Various funding agencies in India offer monetary grants for research in fields such as Science and Technology, Social Science, and others. Government and non-government organizations both run such agencies. A researcher must be well prepared with their research plan or proposals systematically at the time of application to benefit from such agencies. Researchers may be discouraged from researching if they are unable to publish their findings in reputable journals, which are also expensive.
Peer review, while widely regarded as the backbone of scientific publishing, is not without faults. Peer reviewers assist in sorting out poor research and ensuring that a manuscript is free of flaws. Reviewers have been known to delay their work or provide unhelpful reviews because it is not a rewarded task. Furthermore, authors frequently report being bullied by reviewers, who force them to conduct extra experiments, cite specific papers, make unnecessary changes, and so on. The majority of journals use single-blind peer review, which allows prejudices and professional envy to creep in.
As put forward by Bailey B et al., in their article named “Practical tips for managing challenging scenarios in undergraduate research”, a significant issue that students face during an undergraduate research project is that they do not understand the work despite repeated explanations from professors. A good way to handle this situation is to ask questions and explain the material to the professor or the group of students with whom he or she is working, which will assist in identifying the student’s stumbling blocks and building the student’s confidence.
Who should be going for undergraduate research?
Undergraduate research is required not only for those who plan to continue their studies in the discipline at a higher level; it is also important for those who plan to enter the workforce or change careers after graduation. It needs to be noted that only those who have managed to learn well can create; however, even when learning is done well, the student will remain a passive learner unless they engage in some form of creative activity.
The more you study, the more you learn!
The lack of research culture among students is a major impediment to any research initiative’s success. Simply put, the people of India often lack a research culture, which starts with a lack of reading. Reading is the foundation upon which all knowledge propagation is built, and a lack of reading provides a significant impact on research in India.
According to Dr Ashok Shyam (Shyam, A., 2017), several aspects of reading must be considered, including what has been read and how well it has been interpreted. Students at the undergraduate level read a lot, but they’ve always been taught to read textbooks. There is no effort to prepare them for reading journal articles, and the majority of postgraduate students have never seen a journal article before enrolling. Reading a textbook and reading a journal have significant differences.
After all is said and done…
In India, the striking disparity between acquiring knowledge and applying it in real life is reflected in the way institutions are organized. The creation of new knowledge is the focus of research institutes, which are primarily in the natural and social sciences. In contrast, with a few notable exceptions, the universities have rarely been a site of significant research.
In this modern world, we are all audiences of research results in various ways, and we can use them intelligently if we can judge the adequacy of the methods used to obtain them. Knowledge of research methods assists the researchers in evaluating their findings and making rational decisions.
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References
- Sengupta, A. N. T. A. R. A. (2019). Improving research in India: Introducing undergraduate research in higher education. ORF Issue Brief No. 277.
- Bailey, B., Budden, M., & Ghosh-Dastidar, U. (2008). Practical tips for managing challenging scenarios in undergraduate research. MAA Online Column Resources for Undergraduate Resources.
- https://www.thehindu.com/education/look-beyond-the-books/article29241386.ece
- Shyam, A. (2017). Why do we lack a Research Culture? Analysing the Indian Medical Landscape. Journal of Orthopaedic Case Reports, 7(5), 1.
- Raval, N. Challenges and Opportunities of doing research in Rural and Urban institutions in India.
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Agreed💯
Well written