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sharing information in a more informal manner, building a
sense of togetherness and collaboration. Together, formal
and informal inquiry played a crucial role in reuniting the
lost sheep with its shepherd and the community.

Formal inquiry tends to be systematic, structured, and
Contrasting formal explicit in its approach to investigating questions and
and informal generating knowledge. It relies on established procedures,
inquiry often quantitative methods, and deductive reasoning to
test hypotheses and arrive at conclusions. Informal inquiry
is more spontaneous, loosely structured, and inductive in
exploring issues through reflection and experiential learning.
In formal inquiry, academic research starts with a focused
research question, comprehensive literature review, and
clearly defined conceptual framework. It then gathers
empirical data using surveys, experiments, or content analysis
based on a structured protocol and statistical sampling. The
Focused, rigorous analysis uses rigorous quantitative methods to test hypotheses
and generalisable and measure outcomes. Conclusions are carefully delimited
based on the evidence and aim for generalisability. The
inquiry is made explicit through precisely defined constructs
and variables operationalised across large representative
samples. This formal academic research gets codified into
peer-reviewed journal articles and replicated across contexts.
The different elements mentioned in the figure 1.1.3 can be
considered the part of a formal enquiry process.

Fig. 1.1.3 Elements in a formal inquiry process

SGOU - SLM - Foundational Skills for Research and Writing 13