Research Methodology

Course Code: COME5109

Instructor: Dr. S C Forbacha

Department of Computer Engineering,

Level 400 - Semester I

NAHPI, The University of Bamenda

Introduction to Starting a Research Project

Since you are probably doing your first research project, the task may seem overwhelming. And for
those that are familiar with this process, this might help to reinforce what you have already learned.
There are all sorts of questions that may be cropping up in your mind such as:

 How do I find a topic?

 Where do I find information of it?
 What do I write with it when I find it?

Even if you have written a research paper in a writing class, the notion of another one could be even
more intimidating if this time it is supposed to be the real thing.

The good news is………………….!!! Even more experienced researchers feel anxious when they
embark upon a new project especially when it is of a new kind. So whatever anxiety that you may feel,
most researchers have felt the same. But the difference comes in as a result of the fact that experienced
researchers are aware of what lies ahead of them e.g. hard work, some frustration but more satisfaction
and periods of confusion. Irrespective of all these, there is confidence that in the end it will all come
together.

Making Plans

Experienced researchers also know that research most often comes together when they have a plan
irrespective of how rough it is it. Before they start, they may not know exactly what they are looking
for. But in general, they know what is required plus how to find it and what it would look like when
they do.

Once they pull together their material, they don’t just start writing-up. They make a plan possibly no
more than an outline sketch and not even on paper perhaps. But this plan changes in the run into a
problem that leads them in a new direction. Therefore, it is an iterative process that is back and forth
process but in general, they do start with a plan.

Thus writers are free to take different points of view plus lay emphasis on different ideas and they are
also aware that when they follow a standard plan, it makes it easier for themselves to write and their
readers to read efficiently and productively. This course is to help you create, execute and if required,
revise a plan that permits you not only do your best, as well as your original thinking but draft a report
that meets your readers’ needs plus their highest expectation.

The Value of Research

 Why Do Research At All?

 Aside from a grade, what’s in it for you?

So for those of you who are new to research, there are immediate and practical benefits. Learning to
research could help you understand the material that you cover.

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As no other sort of work can match you can evaluate what you read very thoughtfully only when you
have experienced uncertain and often messy process of carrying out your own research. Writing a
report of your own will help you understand the kind of work that lies behind what you find in your
textbooks and what experts tell the public. This lets you experience firsthand:

 How knowledge relies on which questions are asked and which are not.
 How the standard forms for presenting research shape the types of questions and answers you
offer

More abstractedly, the skills you learn now will be crucial when you do advanced work in whatever
field you choose to study. Also, research skills will pay off long after you leave school especially in a
period appropriately named the “Age of Information” or, too often, of Misinformation.

Sound research reported clearly, has enormous value now that the internet and cable flood us with
more information than we can absorb, talk less to evaluate especially when so much of it is based on
research that we rely on at our own risk.

Although some may consider it idealistic, a final reason for conducting research is the pleasure it offers
in solving a mystery. The satisfaction of discovering something that no one else knows and that
contributes to the wealth of human knowledge and understanding. But bear in mind that research,
though is not the sort of thing that you learn once and for all.

Note that you may encounter research projects that would force you to take a fresh look at how to do
your work. But you could still rely on some common principles that all research communities follow,
principles that we would be looking at in our subsequent session. Note that these principles will be
helpful not only now, but the years as your circumstances change plus your research assignments (and
your readers) become increasingly demanding. Bear in mind that doing research carefully as well as
reporting it clearly are hard work consisting of several tasks, often competing. For your attention at the
same time no matter how you plan, research follows a twisted path taking unexpected twists, even
looping back on itself.

As complex as this process is, though, this course will take you through it step-by-step. After you can
manage parts, you would be capable of managing the whole plus looking forward to more research
with greater confidence and clarity.

What is Research?

Research can be defined as an art of a systematic and scientific investigation in the quest of advancing
the frontiers of knowledge (Kothari, 2004). Also, research is the systematic study of materials and
sources in order to establish new facts and reach new conclusions (Oxford English Dictionary for
Students – 2006). Research can equally be defined as a process of enquiry and investigation; it is a
systematic, methodical and ethical; research can help solve practical problems and advances
knowledge.

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Therefore, research can be one of the most exciting features of any degree course and in this case
Computer Engineering course.

Since it offers a measure of control and autonomy over what you learn, it gives you an opportunity to
confirm, clarify, pursue or even discover new aspects of a subject or topic you are interested in.

So we all possess this crucial instinct of inquisitiveness for, even when confronted by the unknown
resulting in wondering plus our curiosity which compels us to probe and attain a complete
understanding of the unknown. Research is an academic discipline and should be deployed in a
technical sense.

Objectives of Research

The aim of research is to discover or to find answers to questions through the application of scientific
procedures. So the main aim of research is to find out the truth which is hidden and which has not been
discovered as yet. Although each research has its own particular purpose, we my think of research
objectives as falling into a number of broad groupings as noted by Kothari (2004):

i) To gain familiarity with a phenomenon or achieve new insights into it (studies with this
objective in view are known as exploratory or formulative research studies).
ii) To portray accurately the characteristics of a particular individual, situation or group
(studies with this objective in view are known as descriptive research studies).
iii) To determine the frequency with which something occurs or with which it is associated
with something else (studies with this objective in view are known as diagnostic
research studies).
iv) To test a hypothesis of a causal relationship between variables (such studies are known
as hypothesis testing research studies).

Also according to Collis & Hussey, 2003), the purpose of research is to:

 Review or synthesize existing knowledge

 Investigate existing situations, or problems
 Provide solutions to problems
 Explore and analyse more general issues
 Construct or create procedures or systems
 Explain new phenomenon
 Generate new knowledge
 Or a combination of any of the above

Motivation in Research

What causes people to undertake research?

This question is of fundamental importance. Therefore, the motives for carrying out research maybe
one or more of the following as noted by Kothari (2004):

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 1) The desire to get a research degree along with its consequential benefits.
2) The desire to face the challenge in solving unsolved problems; i.e. concern over practical
problems initiates research.
3) The desire to get intellectual joy of doing creative work.
4) The desire to be of service to society.
5) The desire to get responsibility.

However, it is worth noting that this is not an exhaustive list of reason factors that motivate people to
undertake research studies. Other factors such as directives of government, employment conditions,
and curiosity about new things may as well motivate people to perform research operations.

Why Write it Up?

For some of you though, that invitation to join the discussion of research may still seem easy to turn
down. If you undertake it, you will face tough tasks in finding a good question, search for sound data,
finding and supporting a good answer plus then writing it all up. Even if you submit a first report of
the finest quality, it is unlikely to be read by an enthusiastic world, instead, it would be read only by
your teacher.

Also, you may think that your mentor already knows all about your topic. If he/she just showed me the
answers or pointed me to the relevant books, I could just focus on learning what is in them.

What do I benefit from writing up my research apart from proving that I can do it? But you are
doing this……

Write To Remember

Researchers write up what they find simply to remember it. Several researchers can plan and conduct
their project only with the help of writing, listing sources, assembling research summaries, keeping lab
notes and making outlines, etc. What is not written down may likely be forgotten or worse, to
misremember. Thus careful researchers do not wait until they have gathered all their data to start
writing. They write from the beginning of their project in order for them to hold as much of it in their
minds as clearly as they could.

Another rationale for writing is to understand. When you arrange and rearrange the results of your
research in new ways, you can discover new connections, contrasts, complications and implications.
Even if you could hold in your mind everything you found, help would be needed to line up arguments
that pull in different directions plot out complicated relationships and sort out disagreements among
experts.

Writing supports thinking rather than just helping you understand better what you have found. It also
helps you find in it broader patterns of meaning/trends.

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Write to Gain Perspective

The essential reason for writing is to get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper where you can
see them in clearer light of print. You improve your thinking when you encourage it with notes,
outlines, summaries and other types of thinking on paper. You do not know what you really can think
unless you separate specific ideas from the messy murky flow of thoughts plus fix them in an organised
and coherent structure. So writing would result in remembering more accurately, understand better
plus see what you think more clearly.

Why Must it be Formal Report?

You may agree that writing is an important, crucial aspect of learning, thinking and understanding. But
some of you may still wonder why you cannot write it your own way.

Why you must satisfy formal constraints imposed by a research community?

These constraints imposed by writing for others often annoy students who believe that they have no
reason to conform to the practices of a discussion they did nothing to create. I do not see why I should
adopt a language and forms that are not mine.

What is wrong with my own language?

Aren’t you just trying to turn me into an academic like yourself?

If I write as my teachers expect me to, I risk losing my own personality. Such concerns might be
justifiable, but it would be feeble education that did not change you at all. Therefore, make no mistake
to believe that learning to write sound research reports would threaten your true identity. Learning to
research will not turn you into a replica of your teachers. It will change the way you think but only by
offering you various ways of thinking. Perhaps the most crucial reason for learning to report research in
ways readers expect is that you learn more about ideas and about yourself by testing them against
standards and the values of others.

Writing for others requires more from you than writing for yourself. You will understand your own
work better when you try to anticipate your reader’s questions:

Now have you evaluated your evidence?

Why do you think it is relevant?
What ideas have you considered but rejected?

So what counts as good work is the same in all of them irrespective of whether it is in the academic
world or that of government, commerce and or technology. Therefore, if you learn to do research well
now, you have a huge advantage regardless of the kind of research you will do later.

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Types of Research

The basic types of research are as follows:

Descriptive vs Analytical

Descriptive research includes surveys and fact-finding enquiries of different kinds. The main purpose
of descriptive research is description of the state of affairs as it exists at present. The main
characteristics of this method are that the researcher has no control over variables. He/she can only
report what has happened or is happening. With descriptive research projects, the researcher seeks to
measure such items as frequency of shopping, preferences of people or similar data. The researchers
also endeavour to discover the causes even when they cannot control the variables

The methods of research deployed in descriptive research are survey methods of all kinds including
comparative and correlational methods. On the other hand, the analytical research has to deploy facts or
information already available and analyse these to make a critical evaluation of the material.

Applied vs Fundamental

Research can either be applied (or action) research or fundamental (basic or pure) research. Applied
research aims at finding a solution for an immediate problem facing a society or an industrial/business
organisation whereas a fundamental research is concerned mainly with generalisation and with the
formulation of a theory. Generating knowledge for knowledge’s seek is known as pure or basic
research.

Research concerning some natural phenomenon or relating to pure maths are examples of fundamental
research. Equally, research studies involving human behaviour are examples of fundamental research
but research targeted at certain conclusions (say a solution) facing a social or business problem is an
example of applied research. Also research to identify social, economic or political trends that may
affect a particular institution or marketing research/evaluation research are examples of applied
research.

Therefore, the fundamental goal of applied research is to discover a solution for some pressing
practical problems while the basic research is directed towards finding information that has a broad
base of applications plus adding to already existing systematized body of scientific knowledge.

Quantitative vs Qualitative

Quantitative research is based on the measurement of quantity or amount - it is applicable to

phenomena that can be expressed in terms of quantity while qualitative research is concerned with
quality phenomenon i.e. phenomena relating to or involving quality of kind. For example, one may be
interested in investigating the reason for human behaviour (i.e. why they think or do certain things).

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Conceptual vs Empirical

Conceptual research is one that is related to some abstract ideas or theory. Generally, it is deployed by
philosophers and thinks to develop new concepts or to reinterpret existing ones while empirical
research relies on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory. It is
data-based research which culminates in conclusions that are capable of being verified by observations
or experiments.

Empirical research is also known as experimental type of research. With this type of research it is
imperative to arrive at facts first-hand at their source plus actively to go about doing particular things
to stimulate the production of desired information. With this type of research, researchers must
provide themselves first with a working hypothesis of guess as to the probable results. They can then
work to get reasonable facts (data) to prove or disprove their hypothesis. They then set up experimental
designs which they think will manipulate the persons/material concerned so as to bring forth the
desired information.

Therefore, such research is characterised by experimenter’s control over variables under study plus
his/her deliberate manipulation of one them to study its effect. Empirical research is appropriate when
proof is sought that. Certain variables affect other variables in some particular way.

The evidence gathered through experiments or empirical studies is today considered to be the most
authoritative support possible for a given hypothesis.

Some other types of Research

All other types of research are variations of one or more of the afore mentioned approaches based on
either the purpose of research, or time required to accomplish research, on the environment in which
research is carried out or on the basis of some other similar factor. From the point of view of time, one
can consider research either as:

As one-time research or longitudinal research: In the former case, research is confined to a single time
period while in the latter case; research is carried out over several time periods. Research could be
field-setting research or laboratory or simulation research based upon the environment in which it is to
be conducted. Research can as well be understood as clinical or diagnostic. Such research follows
case-study methods or in-depth approaches to reach basic causal relationships. Such studies will
usually go deep into the causes of things or events that interest us deploying very small samples and
very deep probing data gathering devices.

This research could be exploratory or it may be formalised: The objective of exploratory research is
the development of hypothesis rather than their testing whereas formalised research studies are those
with substantial structure plus with specific hypothesis to be tested.

Historical research is that which deploys historical sources like documents etc to study events or ideas
of the past including philosophy of persons and groups at any particular point in time. The research
may as well be classified as conclusion-oriented and decision-oriented. In doing conclusion-oriented

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research, a researcher is free to pick up a problem, redesign the enquiry as he/she proceeds and is ready
to conceptualise as he/she wishes while a decision-oriented research is always for the need of a
decision maker. Thus the researcher is not free to embark upon research according to his own
inclination. Operations research is an example of decision-oriented research since it is a scientific
method of providing executive departments with a quantitative basis for decision regarding operations
under their control.

Summary of Some Research types

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