A.

FORMULATING A RESEARCH PROBLEM

 Choose or identify a broader topic or subject area that sparks your interest.
NB. It should be relevant to your field of study
Example: Rock bursts
 Do preliminary reading or general reading about the chosen topic of interest to find out
what literature or data exists concerning the chosen broader topic of interest.
Example: I read
 Do discussion with colleagues/supervisors.
 Frame a topic:
 What to study
 Among whom to study-clear study population
 Where to study-place to do study
 Start narrowing the topic to a specific thing by asking open-ended ‘how’ and ‘why’
questions.
Example: Why do Rock bursts occur in underground mines?
How do Rock bursts occur in underground mines?
 Try to form a purpose statement concerning your research (why investigating…?)
Purpose of the study is to investigate/ determine/ establish the relationship between…
Example: What are some of the environmental factors that cause the occurrence of rock
bursts in underground mines.

Good research question characteristics:

1. Focused
2. Researchable (answer can be found by collecting empirical data or existing
literature)
3. Feasible (doable within a certain timeframe)
4. Specific-clear meaning of terms
5. Complex
6. Relevant to a field of study and also it should be something other people find
relevant. Avoid topics that have been others over and over again.
B. EXTENSIVE LITERATURE REVIEW
This is the search for what has been done in the world, Africa or even Zimbabwe concerning
your chosen topic or area of interest.
Steps for a good extensive literature review:
a. Searching for relevant literature concerning the intended area of
interest or research topic:
I. This involves extensive reading of abstracts of physical
books or journal articles which are relevant to field or
chosen area or topic of study.
II. Searching for relevant literature concerning one’s topic in
online academic sources( relevant digital libraries) eg.
Ebooks, journal articles in accredited scholary databases like
Google Scholar, Science Direct, INSPEC and COMPENDEX-
Engineering village, PudMed, MathSciNet

While searching in digital libraries, different methods can be used eg.

Backward chronological search and Forward Chronological search.
 Also search using keywords with Boolean operators like AND, OR to help
further or refine search results.

b. Evaluate and Selecting sources:

 Read abstract of selected sources to check whether the source is
relevant to chosen topic or not.
 Read references to further other relevant sources.
 Pay attention on the citation count eg. On Google Scholar, if the
count is high its relevant to that area of study and should be
included among relevant sources.
c. Identify themes, debates and gaps
 Take note of connections between different sources.
 Look out for: a) trends, patterns in theories, methods or results
b) Themes
c) Debates or contradictions
d) Gaps
d. Outline literature review structure
 It depends on what you find in literature or what you want to
emphasise in your research topic.
 It includes:
I. Introduction- stating the purpose and focus intended
literature review.
II. Body
III. Conclusion
C. DEVELOPMENT OF A WORKING HYPOTHESIS
A hypothesis is a tentative statement saying what I would expect to find in my research.
Stages I would employ to develop a working hypothesis.
I. Doing preliminary research- looking for theories and previous studies relevant to the
research at hand to help form an educated assumption.
II. Formulating the Hypothesis
Example. For an excavation, an increase in depth below the earth’s surface leads
to an increase in rock bursts occurrence probability.
III. Refining the Hypothesis
After this I would want to make sure that the hypothesis is specific and testable.ie
relevant variables, predicted outcome and a target group are present.
Example. For any given excavation of width…, an increase in depth below the earth’s
surface leads to an increase in rock bursts occurrence probability.
Relevant variables-depth (independent variable), rock bursts occurrence probability
(depended variable)
Predicted outcome-increase
Target group-excavation of width…
IV. Trying to phrase my hypothesis in any of the below three ways:
 If then form: Example. If for any given excavation of width…, an increase in
depth from the surface will then increase the frequency of rock bursts
occurrence
 Correlation/ effect form:
 Comparison form:
 V. Trying to write a null hypothesis:
Example. For an excavation of width…, increasing its depth below the surface will
have no effect on frequency of rock burst occurrence.

D. PREPARING THE RESEARCH DESIGN

E. DETERMING THE SAMPLE DESIGN

Stages I would employ to determine the sample design:

i. Defining the Target Population – this is who do I want to survey, who should I
exclude. Example. I want to survey excavations of width…
ii. Determining the sample frame-
iii. Deciding on the sample procedure
Example. The choice lies between probabilistic and nonprobability sampling
procedures and key points I would use for the selection criteria are:
 Desired degree of precision
 Nature of the population
 Time Limitation
VI. Determining the appropriate sample size
For a large Population size:
N0 = z2pq/e2
For a small population size:
+(n o−1)
N = no/1+
N

VII. Executing Sample Design

F. COLLECTING DATA
Firstly I would need to know the data type I intend to collect.
For Theoretical data:
i. Reading through journals and ebooks on online databases, searching for
more other recent papers on your topic and following references to original
theories. This is done by scanning titles to check their relevance to my title
and reading abstracts to check their importance, purpose and method and
key findings.
ii. Reading through context sharing platforms for example Scribd, Slideshare
and checking for credibility of source( upto date sources)

For Empirical data:

There would be need to choose between whether I want quantitative data or qualitative
data.
 i. For Qualitative Data: I would collect through observations, interviews, focus groups.
I would also stop when there is now repetition of data already collected.
ii. For Quantitative Data: I would collect the data through experiments, measurements,
written journals, written documents.
Example. For the effect of discontinuity orientation on pillar strength. I would
measure the angle of inclination of major discontinuity of pillar.

G. EXECUTION OF THE PROJECT

H. ANALYSIS OF DATA
I. TESTING HYPOTHESIS
J. PRESENTATION OF REPORT OF THESIS