Historical Method: A Critical Review

Abstract

Historical research describes the past things what was happened. This is related with investigating, recording as well as interpreting the past events with respect to the in present perspectives. Historical research is a procedure for the observation with which researcher. It is a systematic collection and objective evaluation of the collected data with respect to the first occurrence to verify causes and effects related to the events with the help of these two explain the present events as well as anticipate for the future work purpose

Introduction

I. NATURE OF HISTORICAL METHODS

Historical research tries to maintain the relationship between the facts and it comes to the conclusion related to their past events or evidences or things. The past evidence with respect to present situation and interpretation can be done by the researcher and because of study between past and present it will be helpful for the researcher to predict what will be happen in the future related to that research problem. Main objectives or aim of the historical study that accurate, legal documents related to the past events or things must important to clear, So the prospective as in present situation such as knowledge enables to the researcher partially to draw conclusion about the future as well as to control existence in future related to the problem. This type of historical research includes delimitation about the problem, generalizations about the possible solutions or hypothesis data analysis and with the help of all these things conclusions may be drawn with the help of inductive- deductive method but there are number of difficulties before the researcher such as lack of control about the evidences or events which happen in the past and data measurement.

 It has been not in the researchers control about sample and there is no possibility for the duplication about the evidences. The data related to the historical research works closed type with fixed locus and researcher can't do anything about their opinion related to sampling and he or she considered to search a type of data. For use in research historical research is different from the experiment but observations, reports cannot be repeated. The researcher may handle the data in different way but not in the same tactic means it is unique way to handle the data. Researcher collects the events in past with different types of forms or documents records other things which directly or indirectly affected on the event of study. The main duty of researcher is very complicated because he or she find out the truth from the evidences which was a historical thing. The main difficulty related to the historical research which is invariably, inadequate as well as time study which is in dependability with respect to data and researcher depend upon observations made by others or witnesses maybe doubtful competence and objectivity also sometime doubtful. The post difficulty related to interpretation of objectivity is also found historical events occurred in various periods, this is also another difficulty and how to determine partly is also difficulty because in every system broad change in regular interval of a calendar, so that incomplete information’s to collect partly is very difficult.

A. Values Included in Historical Research

Values related to the historical research plays vital role in our educational research because researcher must know as well as understand past achievements were tried to increase the prospective. Now on present and future purpose so there are different values of historical research as follows

1. The knowledge about various agencies and schools of history related to the educational importance are essential part of training in professional teacher’s colleges or administrators in the schools.
2. For the historical reform’s researcher would be enables history which detects frills as well as fads whatever they collected from the different sources and it is useful to predict necessary for the preliminary with respect to educational things.
3. In the schools much more works what's traditional, the work related to the administrator and teacher of the school is restrictive and due to that prejudice with the favors of useful and familiar methods.
4. Due to origin as well as growth of the problem researcher can find numerous educational things in the present situation should be view sympathetically or bias without any prejudice of the teacher for administrator or public related to the school.Social institutions transform or change their functions with respect to education of the history that to support and control as well as change from local to simple, centralize and complex maybe now decentralize and simple.
5. The function of institutions which were working in social area changes their objectives day- today because they support and control the system of education from simple as well as local and from centralized to decentralized and complex to simple.
6. The history of education was very simple manner not a competitive manner. In the present day the standards and ideas in the past time which useful for social workers to delete their mistakes which were done in the past.
7. History of education inspires sound environment and good support for the ideal teachers.

B. Types of Historical Research

1. Bibliographic: Important thing about the bibliographic research was to determine and present the different facts which were reliable, valid and true related to the life of persons or achievements which are important to teacher is equator or characters of the person. From Indian point of view the contributions of famous personality such as Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi ji, Netaji subhas Chandra Bose and other they are impact on the present scenario on the educational and social practice of our country people.
2. Legal: For the administrators who were working in different organizations, for their point of you and interest legal research plays vital role at the time. The basic concepts of an educational institution were working on different caste and religions with affiliation from state and Central governments with respect to education as well as teacher and students’ legal status. The administration from different types of school such as public, private, aided or unaided, financing of school students’ participation in the administration such as universities legal research required special training about the large legal things and their implications components and so on were included in the legal research.
3. Studying the History of Ideas: Different ideas or theories which were developed in the past were studied from their origin and stages of development in this research. The purpose of this type of study is to trace the thought which were popular attitude at the particular time. The evaluations in the present scenario such as problem-solving method, team teaching, learning through masteries provides helpful topic.
4. Studying the Organizations: After the independence of India there are different institutions working in the field of education and social work. From the seven decades these institutions grow according to the needs of the society. The changes occurred as expected from the people of the country and these different things can be studied in the Historical method of research. For example, S. N. D. T. Women’s University started before the independence but it’s still doing a model role in the education and social work in the country.

II. SOURCES OF THE DATA

There are different sources of historical data. The data is defined as the information collected for the purpose of analysis and used as bass for the conclusion. The historical data are classified into two major groups.

A. Primary Sources

Which include the witnesses of Eye or Ear as well as the original objects? In this information researcher would be used eyewitnesses and original documents and a description of research work written by a person doing the research would be known as primary sources.  The record available in the primary sources can be examined by the researcher personally. He or she can handle, collect, view, describe and interpreted the evidence. The researcher also studies the previous conclusions drawn by the past researchers or educationist.

1. Personal Records: The records such as diaries, affidavits, certificates of various types, autobiographic, wills, letters, original drafts of speeches, deeds, contracts, books, articles and pamphlet’s and so on are the different types of personal records.
2. Official Records: Judicial, executive, legislative documents were prepared by state or central bodies, panchayats samite, municipalities and other bodies at village or tahsil such as laws, court recordings, charters and different decisions. Also, some meetings proceedings or minutes of the events of the governing bodies or local administrations, private and public organizations such as schools, colleges, various boards and their committees-maintained records are considered as an official record
3. Oral Testimony of Traditions and Events: folk tales, myths, witness related to the events the spoken about event, family program and celebrations, teachers, students, educationist, parents and administrators of the schools etc. are included in the oral testimony.
4. Pictorial Records: Movies, drawings, photographs, microfilms, coins, paintings, sculpture, etc., were added in the pictorial records.
5. Mechanical Records: The records which include such as tape recorder, events photography, speeches, meetings, etc.
6. Remains or Relics: Fossils, weapons, clothing’s, buildings, art objects, question papers sample, student’s different types of work sample, skeletons, tools, furniture’s, utensils, etc.

B. Secondary Resources of Data

Secondary sources include copies of the objects and the information given by the other person and information’s includes description given by historical you want by any other person who is not present when such events were happened would be considered as secondary sources. In the secondary sources includes textbooks, newspapers, encyclopedia, periodicals as well as review of related literature and other references. The secondary sources include documents such as records and reports from the government of Central as well as state departments, different minutes of meeting held in school boards, surveys, charters Deeds, wills, bulletins, attendance role, files, different certificates, diaries and memos. Beside of these interviews, types audio- video presentations also included in the secondary sources.

The person who has in contact with the person who actually present at the events and the discussion done between them. This type of sources is an inherent distortion as well as inaccurate of danger. So that researcher must be dependents on the primary data and secondary data should be used as link between the two types of data. It is not possible for the researcher to obtain the primary data for their research work and use it, so that he or she should rely on secondary data.

Sometimes it is very difficult to find out the accurate primary data which is useful for the research work because researcher did not know about the organizations or nature of the data of the events. The personal diaries, or any such records having wide gap with the researcher to link with the secondary data. If the sources were used carefully then it’s a satisfying the objectives the research work practicable and possible answers of the classifications were rigid in the secondary sources.  Sometimes sources of data may be used as a primary in one research work but it is a secondary source in another.

C. Historical Criticism

In the historical method requires a systematic data available for evaluations with respect to the collected evidence. The data is subjected to careful analysis with true evidence from the false evidence, irrelevant misleading documents or information’s. Historical evidence obtained from historical data which process of criticism having the two types external criticism and internal criticism as follow

D. External Criticism

While doing the external criticism researcher must doing genuineness and authority of the collected data with respect to the different questions related to language of writing, about the author, significance of related to events, period of the events, copying, originality, authenticity of the signatures, chemical analysis of the paints, script, handwriting’s, carbon dating, stone, cloth, paper, ink, wood and metals were taken in to consideration for external criticism. For the external review researcher should be known about art, language, philosophy, cartography, archaeology, cartography, paleology, anthropology, chemistry, different types of modern sciences and ancient’s languages of the world. If he or she does not know about the knowledge about these different fields they cannot do the external criticism 

This type of research is also known as lower criticism of the source of the material. It can be helpful to find out the what happened or claimed? So that researcher should be accepting the true things being fraud of victim. The main aim of this is not to find out negative things from the data and the establishment of the truth. The researcher must be rich knowledge of historical events. The sense of chronology, versatile intellect, and common sense, behavior of human beings, persistence and patience are required for the researcher for doing external criticism 

E. Internal Criticism

While doing the internal criticism researcher must determine if the contents of documents are accurate and he or she must think about the following questions while doing it.

1. How could the author's word be interpreted?
2. Researcher must be following the following three rules when applying the process of internal criticism.

a. First Rule of context, researcher must do the information feet with what was said before and after? Their research work.

b. Second rule of prospective, research how much did the source have a bias? Does the source of information have an affiliation with a particular organization?

c. Third rule of omission, was any information’s either intentionally or unintentionally omitted?

F. Interpretations of Data

The different steps should be done during the research work such as fixation as a problem, after that select a suitable method for the collection of data, after collecting data in historical method it should be criticized internally and externally related to the selected problem. In the historical data interpretations become complex and have special significance related to the greatest ingenuity as well as imagination related to the teacher or researcher. During the process researchers should be taken care with reason and effect relationships. During the entire process physical sciences deal with the different forms of interpretation related to the data. Researchers must be thinking about different facts which are not related to the reasons as well as effect. Actually, history is a record of changes which is related to the past event; therefore, it is very difficult for research to understand as well as interpret a single event of change related to the different events which happened in the past and so many conditions and circumstances related to the research work. 

Therefore, researchers had a difficult task to find out the accurate meaning as well as to investigate influence related to the particular event- reason effect relationship. Therefore, researchers should be careful to use analogies related to the understanding of data during the comparison to find out the conclusion between different historical events and the other things. So that researcher should be taken care about the differences and similarities of the back one event. Finally historical research is not only to find the facts but also shows trends related to the data which gives the inferences of research work. So that researcher must understand the series of events that should draw relationships with vertical criteria in the timeline. Therefore, researchers' objective should be synthesis as well as interpretation beside the summation of the research work.

G. Historical Research in Modern Time

Now in modern times, the historical research method is increasingly used because researchers realized the need and importance of social institutions, organization’s which were working in the history behind it and to find out the background of such institutions which were not properly studied earlier. Therefore, the importance of such institutions as a caste system, family marriage, and diversity and so on was studied with respect to their significance by using historical research. The researcher tried to study from their origin different reasons related to the society as well as various weaknesses and strengths of such institutions. The researchers studied social sciences where they believe that historical research is useful for studying whole things related to such institutions. The data for such type of research is more imaginative as well as subjective instead of objective and real. The documents available for study were mixed up and it is very difficult to separate them for the study purpose. Beside all these difficulties the historical research study is useful for social problems in the present scenario. The most important reasons are to study with the help of historical research which provides good background related to the problems and to find their solutions.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Dr. Dadasaheb More. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.