Research practice is not only needed for researchers. In today’s context, research experience is highly needed in higher education, scholarships, fellowships, or jobs. In Bangladesh, there is not much emphasis on research in schools, colleges, universities or medical colleges, there are less opportunities in many fields even at the graduate or post-graduate level. But the practice of research should be started from the beginning of university life. You can learn research work if you have a little interest.
Take Research Courses:
Various institutes in Bangladesh conduct various courses on research type, research skills and its various steps directly or online platform. Apart from this, research related courses are also offered in various online courses of various international organizations, platforms and universities. These courses have the opportunity to acquire research related knowledge in theoretical and practical phases.
Since there are some differences in the research methodology from subject to subject, you can apply to organizations or institutions related to the subject you are studying. If you want to work in public health in future, you can enroll in a short course to learn research at ICDDRB, BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, PI Research Center or Binary Data Lab. Apart from this, you can take courses on statistical software SPSS, STATA, which are considered very important technical skills for researching any subject. There is an opportunity to do various types of courses at a very low cost or free of cost on various platforms including EDX, Coursera on the Internet. By taking courses in between work or study, it is possible to learn various stages and processes of research.
Websites where you can find out about research courses:
- http://training.icddrb.org/siteinfo/circularDetail?1=1&view=171
- https://bracjpgsph.org
- https://www.pircc.org/training/
- https://binarydatalab.org/category/training/
- https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=research
Hands-on Research:
Hands-on practical approach to learning research is most effective. Many professors and teachers are involved in research at the university level. So take the advice of the teacher while studying in the university. You can join them in data collection, data analysis and research work. Another effective way is to work as a part-time staff or intern in various domestic research institutes. You can also start working as a volunteer or assistant in various research projects outside your university or workplace.
You can find job opportunities as research assistant in various domestic and international institutions including Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD). You can also learn from data collection to data analysis and research paper writing in a group. Such experiences often lead to opportunities to write international papers. Various universities also have open courses on research. For example, Dhaka University’s Institute of Education and Research conducts advanced courses on research methodology.
Read a lot of research articles:
Whether you are a novice or a professional in research, you need to know the work of other researchers, read different journals all the time. Although reading research papers may seem incomprehensible or boring in the beginning, the habit of reading research papers should be developed regularly. Gradually you will understand the various tasks and steps of research.
Also, try reading various articles, interviews or books on the subject you are interested in researching. If you have such interest, you can create new research ideas. There is no substitute for reading research papers to learn the research process and review research. There are various open source websites on the internet, from where you can read research papers. Links to some such websites:
- www.jstor.org
- onlinelibrary.wiley.com
- scholar.google.com/
- www.sciencedirect.com/science/search
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
- www.thelancet.com
- bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com
