Page 24 - SREENARAYANAGURU OPEN UNIVERSITY

purpose is to gain deeper wisdom of phenomena through
continual exploration and ever more meaningful questions,
Essence of not attain simplistic closure. Answers must be contextualised
rigorous inquiry as simply mileposts in the unending journey of increasing
understanding through inquiry.

Thus, questions constitute the compass for inquiry.
Research guided by incisive questions will bear rich answers.
But the greatest insights arise from adopting inquiry as an
Questions as the open-ended stance of looking at the world through ever more
compass of inquiry perceptive questions rather than extracting fixed answers.
Questions illuminate the path, answers merely point to the
next stage in the eternal journey of knowledge creation.

Summarised Overview

The unit provides a detailed account of the difference between research and
inquiry, emphasising that inquiry is sparked by curiosity and wonder through
questions, as shown in the dialogue of the poem. It compares critical and con-
vergent thinking with the formal structured inquiry that uses quantitative meth-
ods and informal inductive inquiry based on lived experiences. Informal inquiry
is self-directed and evolves through interpersonal exchanges and experiential
learning, leading to contextual insights. On the other hand, formal academic
research aims for generalisable facts and causal laws. The quality of questions
is crucial for meaningful inquiry, which is an open-ended process of gaining
wisdom through perceptive questions rather than focusing solely on definitive
answers.

Assignments

1. Choose one academic discipline like history, economics, literature etc.
Explain in a paragraph how researchers in that field use inquiry to gain
understanding. What kinds of questions might they ask?

2. Explain the difference between convergent and divergent thinking in
two or three sentences. Provide one example of each type of thinking
from your own experience.

3. Imagine you lost an important item like your wallet. Outline the steps
you would take to find it through formal inquiry versus informal inquiry.

18 SGOU - SLM - Foundational Skills for Research and Writing