Review of Research Methodology Training

Time
The training was of a week long. It started on 29th June and ended on 5th July. Each day it started at 11 am and ended at 4 pm. There were two sessions each day. Each session was of 2 hours. There used to be tea breaks for 30 minutes each day.

Organizer
The training was organized by Faculty of Education (FOE), Dean's Office, Kirtipur and sponsored by University Grant Commission (UGC), Nepal. The World Bank had provided fund for the training.

Day 1
Opening
At first there was registeration and opening ceremony. A number of distinguished personalities were present. There was Dr. Prakash Man Shrestha, Dean of the faculty if Education, Prof. Dr. Kamal Krishna Joshi, Chairperson, UGC, Nepal, Dr. Hari Prasad Upadhayay, Coordinator, Faculty of Education.
These personalities focused on the importance of research for teachers. Teaching and research are two sides of a coin so they must go side by side. They pointed out that research culture should be developed in our country as well. Dr. Shrestha objectively expressed the expected outcomes of the training. He expected that the trainee would be able to write proposal to be submitted to the UGC, help to work as good guide, help to do M. Phil, base their teaching in research, and be clear on qualitative and quantitative research paradigms.
After the completion of opening ceremony the first session started.

Session 1
The topic was 'Identification of Problem' and the presenter was Prof. Dr. Basu Dev Kafle. In this session I learned that a research problem should be researchable and should be the topic for further discussion. Though all questions need answers but all of them can noth be researchable problems for us. A hypothesis is not necessarily a reseach problem as the former shows the relations between two problems. There may be various sources of research problem. They are personal experience, deductions from theory, related literature, contemporary social and political issues.

Generally, problem can be of three types: conceptual, action and value problem. The first one is for building theory, 2nd one is for addressing daily problems, and the last one is for judgement. The area of the problem has to be narrowed down and made more specific. There are certain parameters of researchable problems. A researchable problem should of great interst for the researcher, it should be significant, literature should be available, the research should add certain knowledge, should discover a new knowledge, should either prove or disprove the already existing theory or knowledge.

Session 2
The second session was related to the review of literature in research. The prsenter was Dr. Bharat Bilas Pant.

Literature review can be defined as an account of what has been done on the concerned subject or area by accredited scholars and researcher. The basic purpose of literature review is to convey the reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and to make the researcher clear about the area of his/her research. Defining the topic, clarifying the purpose and meaning, identifying the key words which could be used such as synonyms, variations is spelling, etc are very useful in literature review. The availability of research depends on access to sources of information such as books, reference materials, journals, conference papers, dissertations, abstracts, internet indexes, electronic database, and government publications etc.

Day 2
Session 1