There is always a gap between theoretical knowledge and its application. Application is the essence of knowledge. It is only with practice that this gap can be narrowed.

Thus crk caraka counsels that “those alone are wise who act after investigation” – pir]ykairnaeih k…sla ÉviNt parikñayakärinohi kusalä bhavanti

Lord Buddha in kalam sUÇ käläma sütra teaches a way of thinking whereby, he instructs, one should only believe based on unbiased evidence.

“Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumour; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration. ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalama, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are good; these things are not blameable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.”

Research is a way of obtaining answers to a question. It is the strictly scientific way of finding answers. When a research study is undertaken to find out answers to a question, it implies that the process is:

being undertaken within a framework of a set of philosophies

using procedures, methods and techniques that have been tested for their validity and reliability and

designed to be unbiased and objective.

Adherence to these three criteria enables the process to be called ‘research’. However, the degree to which these criteria should be fulfilled varies from discipline to discipline.

The word research is composed of two syllables, re and search. The dictionary defines the former as a prefix meaning ‘again’, ‘anew’ or ‘over again’, and the latter is a verb meaning ‘to examine closely and carefully’, ‘to test’, ‘to try’ or ‘to probe’.
Thus, the word research is a noun describing a careful, systematic study and investigation into some field of knowledge, undertaken to establish facts or principles (Grinnell 1993:4)
For the purposes of this collection, the essential characteristic of research activity is that it leads to publicly verifiable outcomes, which are open to peer appraisal.