Exploring Students’ Perception about Research at the Higher Education Level

Abstract

Research is an important tool for development and success in every country. At the higher education level, practical and theoretical research is a part of every university course work especially undergraduate, postgraduate and Ph.D. levels. Research is a systematic process of collection and analysis of data for the purpose of solving any problem or getting the answer to any question. The problem under this study was to explore student perception about research, research ethics and research plagiarism at the higher education level. It was descriptive research. The population was the public and private universities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The students were selected through the convenient sampling technique. After the collection of data the researcher was analyzed the quantitative data through the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS). The qualitative data was analyzed through thematic analysis. The statistical and thematic analysis shows that students very well understand the meaning and definition of research, research ethics and research plagiarism. However, students are unable to perceive rules, regulations and types of research ethics and plagiarism.