Essential guide to doing research

•  Creative and strategic thinking should be seen as central to the research process. Research can be thought of as "thinking game" and "a whole brain activity that often demands that researcher should think outside any set of perspective 'rules'. It demands creativity that is effectively balanced with focus and structure.

• Scientific war born of positivism and adopted the assumptions of paradigm. These assumptions include: knowable and predictable world; empirical and reductionist research ; objective and expert teacher; hypothesis driven methods and quantitative findings.

•  The assumption of positivism have been brought into question. Post-positivist research acknowledge :a world that is ambiguous and variable ; research that can be intuitive and holistic ; research that can be collaborative and subjective ; method that can be exploratory and inductive; and research that can be ideographic and qualitative.

• Rather than positioning the research according to paradigmatic assumption, the reflexive researcher can consider whether it is possible to explore the assumptions of various paradigms as they relate to particular research questions.