Guwahati, October 28: A two-week-long capacity building programme on “Research and Training: Learning Process for the Faculty in Social Sciences” has begun at the University of Science and Technology Meghalaya (USTM) from yesterday.
The programme will continue till 9th of November, 2022 and it is being organised by the Department of Rural Development with full support from the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), New Delhi, accord to a Press communique.
The keynote address during the inaugural session was delivered by Prof. Bhagirathi Panda, Prof. of Economics and Honorary Director, ICSSR-NERC, Shillong on the topic “Research in Social Science: Issues and Challenges”. He emphasised on the ethical dimension of the development practices.
Giving an introduction to Research Methodology, Prof. Sambit Malik, Department of Humanities & Social sciences, IIT-Guwahati spoke about the four categories of science, i.e, ideology, intution, knowledge and method. He said that knowledge can be gained with two sources: experience and reasoning. The knowledge that is derived from reason and logic is called rationalism. On the other hand, the knowledge that is derived from experience and experimentation is called empiricism.
Dr. Manoj Nigadkar emphasised on the different theories associated with the qualitative research. Qualitative research is based on the people’s perception and simple real life observations. Qualitative research is concerned with the opinion, experience and feelings of individuals.
Speaking on Teaching-Learning Methods, Prof. Gayatree Goswamee, Dean, PQSE, USTM talked about three types of teaching-learning method: emphasize the learners (to find out what the students wants), guide the learners (the teachers are not master but a guide) and promote the learners’ development (to dig out the potentialities and give the students an enriching environment). She also talked about the different methods that a teacher needs to use. Teaching-learning needs to be more interactive. A teacher is like sculptor because teachers give life to the students. Teacher needs to be sensitive and be able to recognize the fact that two individuals are not the same and needs to be patience and treat all the students equally, she added.
The welcome address in the inaugural session was delivered by Prof. B.K Das, Pro Vice Chancellor, USTM while Dr A.H. Barbhuiya, Academic Registrar and Director, IQAC USTM delivered the inaugural address. The programme concluded with the vote of thanks extended by Dr Papiya Dutta, HoD of the department of Rural Development. Resource persons of the two-week-long training programme at USTM are from IIT-G, NIT, TISS, NEHU, Tripura University, NIRDPR-NERC etc.