Enhancing the Research Interest

Dr. Sandeep S. Wangikar (sswangikar@coe.sveri.ac.in), Associate Professor & Head, Department of Mechanical Engineering, SVERI’s College of Engineering, Pandharpur

The success of any task or achievement of any goal prominently depends upon a person’s individual interest in it. The interest in research plays a significant role in the career of an Engineering student/professional.

Research Outcomes: There are many outcomes of research interest which can completely turn the life of any student/professional.

The Outcomes of research interest includes a successful entrepreneur, excellent placement, patent, research funding/grant, paper publication, collaborative work with industries, etc. The most ultimate outcome of research is satisfaction gained after achieving any goal/completing a task which can’t be counted by any means.

Research Components: Research is a systematic and logical search for novel and valuable information on a specific subject. We are facing new problems or challenges on daily basis.The feasible solutions which implementable for such problems/challenges is a need of the era.This can be only possible through RESEARH only.There are two main types of research as Basic or Fundamental research and Applied research.

• Fundamental researchwhich is also known as theoretical research is related to investigation on basic principles and explanations for occurrence of a specific process or event.  It may or may not have any direct immediate application to the field. The vital conclusions of basic research create a base for many applied researches.
• Applied research: In this type of research, problems are solved by using the various principle and theories. It includes mainly case studies, experimentations, interdisciplinary research. The outcome of this research is immediate application to any problem or challenge.

Interest Components: There are two components of interest: individual interest and situational interest. The first one i.e. individual interest is long-lasting where the situational interest is temporary and attached with the situation (Hidi& Baird, 1988; Renninger, 2000). So, for completing a task successfully or achieving a goal in research, the individual research is important.

Enhancing the Research Interest:

The research interest of students is required to be enhanced continuously. At first there should not be fear in the mind about the word “RESEARCH”. Research is that way a very simple and all students can easily proceed in research area. Every time it is not at all expected that doing something big is only a significant research, but a very small component, process, or any product development or just modification in any product is also a research.

There are some pointers which will help in enhancing the research interest amongst students. As indicated in the figure below:

• The research interest can be easily enhanced with practical exposure or hands on training and also by simulations using softwares. The experience while doing this will create great interest amongst the students.
• Patents filing is one of the great honor and it will definitely act as a motivation for students to boost the research interest.
• The publication in any reputed journal or presenting a research paper in any national/international as an outcome of research is also a good pointer for enhancing the research interest.
• The very important is that solving a small problem faced by the society/any organization/industry/farmer/any small shopkeeper or any municipal corporation is a very significant contributing factor in boosting research interest.
  • This can be achieved by:
• Visiting the nearby areas and try to identify the common problems in your area
• Identifying the need of/problems faced by the nearby small industries
• Common problems of Gram Panchayat/Nagar Parishad/Municipal Corporation
• Identifying the need of local market/shopkeepers
• This will definitely lead to collection of problems/challenges in the society and further can be converted to many small research opportunities.

References:

• Hidi, S., & Baird, W. (1988). Strategies for increasing text-based interest and students’ recall of      expository texts. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 465–483.
• Renninger, K. A. (2000). Individual interest and its implications for understanding intrinsic motivation. In C. Sansone& J. M. Harackiewicz (Eds.), Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: The Search for Optimal Motivation and Performance (pp. 373–404). San Diego, CA: Academic Press, Inc
• https://innspub.net/types-of-scientific-research/