Skills Development for Research

A webinar on “Skills Development for Research “was organized on 7th October, 2020 at 3.30pm using Zoom online platform by the Department of Business Administration (DBA), School of Business, Britannia University. The BBA students from 1st to 12th semesters attended the live webinar under the active supervision of the faculty members of the DBA. It was a more than 3 hours long live session. The key speaker of the webinar was the Honorable Vice-Chancellor of Britannia University Prof. Tofail Ahmed, PhD who is simultaneously a great scholar, researcher, writer and popular media personality. This is the first webinar for the School of Business in which the current students and the faculties got the opportunity to meet their queries about research throughout an interactive atmosphere with the Honorable VC.

Honorable Dean, School of Business and Chairman, DBA Prof. Dr. Surajit Sarbabidya made a preliminary introduction by praising about the key speaker of the webinar, the Honorable Vice-Chancellor Prof. Tofail Ahmed, PhD. He delivered his speech and shared his knowledge in such an amazing way that enriched our learners meeting their so many queries. The following paragraphs have been set on the basis of the deliveries of the key speaker and his answers to the students’ and faculties’ queries about skill development for research.

Honorable Vice-Chancellor Prof. Tofail Ahmed, PhD (Key Speaker)

Prof. Tofail Ahmed, PhD started his session through some inspirational quotes for a researcher like “Set a goal, do hard work with patience and commitment so that society can be benefited by your research work”.

1. Elaboration of Research: He clarified and explained the research in such an easy and catchy way like “Re-search means searching again or does investigation in order to find out a fact, a solution, and a cause behind a specific problem or issue through a systematic and scientific method in reaching a conclusion for decision making, specially business decision.”
2. Set the moral and ethical attitude of the researcher: Prof. Tofail Ahmed, PhD secondly emphasized on the ethical attitude of the researcher. Because, the intention and honesty of the researcher should be accountable to find out the truth of his or her work. A researcher should work in such a dedicated way so that he or she can be able to reach as close as to the truth.
3. Prepare the research plan: A researcher should prepare a plan of conducting his or her research work by following systematic and scientific methods like-

1. What is the area or title or topics of the research?
2. Why do I do the research (Objectives of the research)?
3. Who will do this work?
4. How do I conduct the study (methodology of the research)?
5. When will the study be accomplished (duration of the research)?

1. Follow the sequences of formal research:
2. Choose your research topic
3. Narrow it down and focus on a specific issue
4. Identify  a research problem
5. Develop your clear research questions
6. Develop a research design to answer those questions
7. Write your research proposal

1. Accomplish the research work:

In this segment the key speaker focuses on developing a good research design and said that “a standard research facilitates the 50% of the whole research”. The research design refers to the overall strategy that you choose to integrate the different components of the study in a coherent and logical way, thereby, ensuring you will effectively address the research problem as it constitutes the blueprint for the collection, measurement and analysis of data. It includes the following components-

1. The information needed
2. Design the types like qualitative or quantitative research including exploratory, descriptive, and causal
3. Specify the measurement and scaling procedures
4. Appropriate method of data collection like questionnaire, focus group, interview for primary data and authentic and reliable secondary data.
5. Specify the sampling process and sample size
6. Develop a plan of data analysis.

After that he focused on the writing of report based on the research work. “Language and the style of presenting the findings of a research is an art” he said.  According to him, the targeted audience should be able to connect with the outcome of a research, then a researcher is successful.

The webinar was chaired by the honorable Dean of the School of Business Dr. Surajit Sarbabidya, beautifully hosted by Lecturer Mrs. Tania Akter with her utmost effort, coordinated and supervised by the faculty members 1) Mr. Md. Saddam Hossain, 2) Mrs. Khaleda Akter, 3) Mrs. Farzana Tabassum, 4) Mrs. Fatema-Tuz-Zohara. As an additional duty, Mrs. Khaleda Akter acted as rapporteur and prepared the proceedings of the session.

Both the students and faculty members took part in question and answer session.

The webinar ended with vote of thanks to the students and faculty members by the honorable Dean of the School of Business Dr. Surajit Sarbabidya who assured to organize webinar series in the upcoming days to enrich students’ knowledge and skill base.