I am reading research papers received from different research scientists and in most of the cases, scientists say that their findings were similar to those reported by earlier researchers. I could not understand till date that why one has taken that type of problem which has already been evaluated by some one some times back. Kindly comment on this for my learning.
Just look from a different angle. The later study is proving that the earlier investigation is correct. This is also a supportive findings. Suppose someone has reported that there is no life in Mars; the later study also proving that.
It's just to confirm that the problem really exist and that your findings are reliable. In research you need to support your findings. The studies are carried out in different areas. Also in thesis writing there is a section called Empirical Review where you need to reveal studies related to your work.
Hi, Manoj,
It is best to think of most research as incremental. Most research builds on what others have done and add just a tad more to the knowledge base. Pure replication studies, at least in my field, are fairly uncommon, but there is an aspect of replication in every study that seeks to incrementally add a little to the knowledge base.
Perhaps an example will help. My students noted research in Iowa that surveyed users of a rural food pantry prior to the 2008 recession. The local food pantry in our rural community had grown substantially in usage since then. So the students replicated the Iowa study post-recession and found evidence that both replicated the Iowa study and offered a bit more about post-recession rural users of food pantries. One significant difference was that evidence of stigmatization of food pantry use was lower post-recession.
More recently, another student group converted a social distance scale to measure stigmatization of rural food pantry use to find that users reported higher levels of stigmatization than the general public. All three studies had some common findings, but each added a bit more to the knowledge base.
Manoj Sharma
Much of science, especially medicine is still an art and not an exact science, Good objective evidence is often hard to collate and gather. Several studies in an area corroborate often flimsy evidence. Striving to be truly objective from subjective data can be a real toil. We only slowly move forwards. Hope that's helpful.
It is not always necessary. Having the similar findings does not mean same research is taken up. It can be for different item e.g. one is studying economics of guava fruit crop and supporting his results with review of pear. If the crop is same, it can be for a different location, sample size and sampling technique can be different.
Manoj Sharma
Sir, you had started this discussion way back in February, 2019. But still, I want to take part in your discussion now.
You have raised a very vital issue in your discussion. I think there is only one reason for which researchers are doing the same type of research and reaching the same type of result. They are trying to refine the existing knowledge on that topic or related topics. Moreover, once a research has been pursued, after some time there is a need to pursue that same research again. It is needed to find out if the same results are coming out of that research or something else is being generated. You can say that such researchers are testing the effect of time on that research topic.
Actually, I am also doing the same type of research right now. I am pursuing a research on maintaining continuity of professional careers. There have been many researches pursued on this topic. But still I am pursuing this research to refine the existing knowledge in this domain.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Anam.
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