Journal | Tuesday, 2 August 2011 | sundanesecorner.org
Hawe Setiawan
Dr Bachrudin at my friend's house (photograph: Hawe Setiawan)
MY friends and I had an interesting talk last weekend with Dr. Bachrudin Musthafa of Indonesian University of Education (UPI) at my friend’s house in Bandung. Studied extrinsic aspects of language at Ohio State University, Dr. BM is now one of the key figures organizing UPI postgraduate programme. We consulted him in order to develop better understanding of academic research. Having undertaking a research over the past few years, I myself was quite interested in what Dr. BM described for about an hour. Here are some points I have noticed based on the informal talk:
- ‘A research could be understood as a systematic undertaking in order to answer questions through data.’ By formulating questions, a researcher shapes her effort in collecting data toward a certain purpose. In other words, research questions give her a purpose.
- What one calls as data must have certain form, quality and sources. The quality of data depends on the research method applied by the researcher.
- A researcher must be in need of some tools for analyzing her research subject. The subject should be defined properly and accurately, for the definitions will be useful tools for the researcher.
- ‘A research could also be understood as a systematic way in reading a pattern.’ In so doing, a researcher should familiarize the data through ‘multiple reading.’
