A Qualitative Inquiry into the Challenges faced by the Researchers and possible threat to Quality of Research in India

Abstract

Research is a multifaceted initiative undertaken by different scholars belonging to different fields. Many Indian National and State level institutes/ bodies like University Grant Commission, National Council of Educational Research and Training, Indian Council for Social Science Research, Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Indian Council of Historical Research, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Panjab University, and more such institutions are engaged in promoting excellence in research in higher education by supporting various research grants, scholarships, workshops, and other programs in several disciplines. In today's dynamic globalized era, the nation's development demands equal focus on volume and quality in research work. When research standards in India are compared with International setups, International standards outshine the Indian standards by a fair distance. The research standard in past decades in Social Sciences has become an issue of national concern for research conducting and promoting entities. It has been revealed in the studies that the quality of research has been compromised due to numerous reasons. On most occasions, promotion, degrees, jobs, scholarships, etc. are found to be the objective of researchers behind conducting research which impacts the quality of research at the end, and on other instances, the challenges reasons are found to be lack of proper facilities for the researchers before going to the field, on the field, and after field-work. These limiting factors are the major roadblocks in producing trustworthy work. In this descriptive study, the researcher presented the challenges faced by the doctorate students and also attempts to highlight the factors responsible for low-quality research work. The non-probability sampling technique selected the sample of 100 research scholars from different parts of the country (25 from North India, 25 from South India, 25 from West India, and 25 from East India). The questionnaire, Interview, and Focussed Group Discussions (on the conference call) were used to collect data. In the finding section of this paper, the challenges of research scholars were presented under different dimensions. These dimensions were structural challenges (pertains to the structure of the Ph.D. program), functional challenges (the processing aspect of Ph.D.), administrative challenges (relates to administration and supervision), and personal challenges (includes researcher's limitations w.r.t. research). It was found that the intensity of challenges was more in the personal, emotional, and administrative dimensions. The problems reported were related to the general working process, domain-specific expertise, supervision, scholar preparation, and resources, etc. This study is submitted with suggestions for education experts, policy framers, the institution of state and national level, government, and other stakeholders of education. The paper leaves space for further dialogue, brainstorming, and debate for setting research quality parameters and quality excellence research framework in India.