The School of Tribal Resource Management, KISS Deemed to be University is organizing a five-day virtual workshop on Research Methodology and Hands-on Learning from 02nd to 06th August 2021. Day one of the workshop was graced by Dr. Sumita Mishra, Associate Professor, School of Management, KIIT Deemed to be University.

Dr. Mishra talked about the basics of Research, Research Philosophy, Types, Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods. She spoke on the current trends in research in the context of the ongoing pandemic and covered the building blocks of research and spoke about the difference between Science and Social Science, Cycle of research, types of scientific research, broad methodological paradigms (focus on Ontology and Epistemology), methodological stances associated qualitative and quantitative research, concepts vs Constructs vs Variables, building a nomological network of construct, model building process, comparison of methodologies, sampling and issues in sampling, archival analysis, experiment survey, and case study. She cited many examples to explain various concepts in detail and also referred to Sykes and Matza’s Juvenile Delinquency Theory as a case study. Dr. Mishra concluded her deliberation by saying that one should keep in mind that software and tools are only aids and not much dependence on them should be encouraged.

Dr. Sumita Mishra is an alumna of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, and a Fellow from the Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon.

Spelling out the aims and objectives of the workshop, Dr. Snigdharani Panda, Dean, School of Tribal Resource Management, KISS-DU said, “The objective behind holding this workshop is to help faculty members learning the ropes of Research Methodology to keep pace with the recent advancement in any discipline. The outcome of this workshop is to learn to identify the research problem, design a valid research project and get hands-on training on the usage of various open-source tools.”

In his welcome address, Professor Deepak Kumar Behera, Vice-Chancellor, KISS-DU said, “A workshop on such a topic carries immense significance because young scholars struggle during their research journey. The researchers should understand the rationale and see the feasibility of the topic on which they work. The topic should be logical and realistic. Only a voracious reader can become a good researcher. A researcher should aim at preparing annotated literature, thorough review of literature, writing footnotes, and preparing references in a proper format”. He concluded his opening remarks by appreciating the topic of the workshop.

Dr. Prashanta Kumar Routray, Registrar, KISS-DU spoke about the role, relevance, and importance behind organizing such workshops on areas of Research and Development as KISS-DU is gradually translating into a research university and is working on establishing a research hub on campus. He highlighted that action based research is a recent trend and that truly defines the hands-on learning angle as good research is a combination of theory and practical. Drawing reference from the National Education Policy 2020, he cited how the new policy has laid adequate emphasis on action-based research which is the need of the hour.

Speaking on ‘Systematic Literature Review, Bibliometric Analysis and MetaData Analysis’ on the second day of the workshop, Dr. Manoj Dash, Associate Professor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee-Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management (ABV-IIITM) stated that research questions are based on issues, industry-oriented, functions or specialized, tool-centric, and crowd following. He stressed the fact that people interested in the research world should have a research kit comprising a broad research area, focus, sector, research question, research issue, master file, list of 10 good journals, 10 prominent cited research.

He covered various types of review like Structural, Bibliometric, Review based on correspondence, analysis, Review based on Meta-Analysis, Critical Review of Studies, Conceptual Review. Dr. Dash emphasized concepts like Research Documentation inclusive of Grammarly, Latex, Referencing Manager, use of SPSS and MATLAB.

Dr. Dash is a visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Management Indore, Indian Institute of Science and Education Research, Berhampur, G.D Goenka World Institute Gurgaon, Lancaster University, United Kingdom, and Symbiosis Institute of Operation Management, Nashik, and many more. He has over nineteen years of teaching experience with interest areas in Marketing Analytics, Marketing Science, Business Analytics, Retail Analytics, Service Marketing, etc.

Delivering the introductory address, Professor Deepak Kumar Behera, Vice-Chancellor, KISS-DU said, “I appreciate the number of participants who have joined in day-2 of the workshop. Day 1 was very informative and I am sure that the participants might have been extremely benefited by the deliberation of the resource person. As we approach day-2, I would like to say that the themes to be covered today have been very thoughtfully curated. Systematics Literature Research is very important because it identifies, selects, and critically appraises research to answer one or more questions. Reading, writing and excellent communication skills are the key ingredients of a good researcher.”

Earlier, Dr. Birendra Suna, Director Research, KISS-DU recapitulated the day-1 proceedings. Dr. Snigdharani Panda, Dean, School of Tribal Resource Management, KISS-DU delivered the formal vote of thanks. This international workshop witnessed over 2900 enthusiastic participants from Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, Ghana, Srilanka, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Algeria, Greece, China, and across India.