By
Emmanuel Oumarou, Ph. D.[1]
Abstract
This article investigates the relationship between a stage-by-stage approach to elaborating a research project and the scientific mind. It argues that stage-by-stage research demonstrates clear thinking which is characteristic of and gives expression to the scientific mind. Its aim is to accentuate the vital role of process in the development of research that reflects scientific thinking and to highlight its advantages.
Keywords: research, science, stage-by-stage research, research as a process, scientific mind, scientific thinking.
Introduction
In general, the writing of a scientific research is a daunting, arduous, rigorous, and investigative endeavor that consumes both energy and time. The research workload intensifies when it comes to elaborating masters’ theses or doctoral dissertations. To ease the process and minimize loss of time, Mauch and Park (2003) advise that researchers devise a “detailed plan of action” that they meticulously follow (p. 2). A close strategy is that of segmenting the research project into smaller pieces that are treated in succession within a realistic time frame. In this wise, Chase, et al (2013) suggest a time management approach that links research “goals with a defined process” (para. 3). They hold that, planning and executing research that maximizes researchers’ efficiency and productivity involves breaking tasks into components that can be handled within available time or dividing long tasks “into manageable tasks” (Chase et al., 2013, paras. 12, 25). These strategies that I term processual segmentation of research (stage-by-stage development of research) are intended to keep the project on course and encourage the disciplined use of time and other resources involved in putting a research together.
Intrinsic to the processual segmentation of research is the notion of sequentiality – a step after step construction. Sequentiality is cardinal in research development not only for its mental practicality (the mind appropriates and analyzes facts in bits) but also because science, inherently, demands a procedural (stage-by-stage) approach in observing, investigating, analyzing, and interpreting phenomena. In this light, the elaboration of a research project is a process requiring that, like any other literary composition, a unit of research is joined to another, a step at a time. Jean Yves Cariou (2001) insists that this process, which in positivist strategies of inquiry is essentially hypothetico-deductive, becomes the unifying thread or guiding principle of scientific research (p. 19). This article probes into the need for a stage-by-stage development of research as an affirmation of the scientific mind. It answers the following questions: What does it mean to elaborate a stage-by-stage research? What are the meaning and implications of the scientific mind? In
which way does a stage-by-stage research give expression to the scientific mind? Such are the interrogations that form the substratum of the article. Therein, I contend that stage-by-stage research development provides exhibits for and expresses the scientific mind in visible methodological ways. The purpose of the article is to highlight the strategic place of processual segmentation of research in the production of robust and compelling scientific research. It further aims at showing that, failure to be sequential in elaborating research, researchers may be bogged down in the quagmire of organizational chaos, methodological ambivalence, poor use of time, loss of impetus, and end up producing papers that fall far below the rigorous demands of scientific production.
The article builds on five main points. The first point defines the concept of research and shows its function. The second point explores the meaning of a stage-by-stage elaboration of research. The third point elucidates the concept of a scientific mind. The fourth point shows that tackling research through processual segmentation exhibits evidences of the presence of the scientific mind. The final point discusses few rewards of processual segmentation of research in a scientific research.
