Professional Documents
Culture Documents
What Is Research
What Is Research
Introduction to Research
http://www.management.usm.my/daing
What is Research?
Definition: An organised, systematic, data-
based critical scientific inquiry or investigation
into a specific problem, undertaken with the
objective of finding answers or solutions to it.
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What is Research?
Research is what we do when we have a
question or a problem we want to resolve
We may already think we know the
answer to our question
We may think the answer is obvious,
common sense even
But until we have subjected our problem
to rigorous scientific scrutiny, our
'knowledge' remains little more than
guesswork or at best, intuition.
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What is research?
First priority is to formulate your
question
Then figure out how you are going to
answer it
How have others answered it?
How does your proposal fit in with what
others have done?
How will you know when you have
answered it?
Then you can present your answer
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Research Workflow
Defines the step by step flow for your
research
Keeps you organized
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Research Workflow
OBSERVATION
Broad area of
research interest
identified
PROBLEM THEORETICAL
DEFINITION FRAMEWORK
HYPOTHESES
Research Variables clearly GENERATION
problem identified and
delineated labeled
SCIENTIFIC
RESEARCH
DESIGN
PRELIMINARY
DATA DEDUCTION
GATHERING DATA COLLECTION,
Hypotheses
Interviewing & substantiated? ANALYSIS AND
Literature Survey Research questions INTERPRETATION
answered
Finding Research Problem –
(Where and How)
Literature review
Library websites
Class discussions
Discussion with your professors and
peers
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Defining Problem Statement
Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) presents a
methodology for traffic analysis on urban streets
Weaknesses of HCM methodology for urban
street;
Default values for basic speeds not well substantiated by
data.
Does not consider traffic flow influencing running speeds
of vehicles.
HCM underestimates travel speed.
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Formulating Hypothesis
Running Speeds of vehicles are
affected by traffic volume
Roundabouts can be used as an
effective tool for traffic calming
Vehicle speeds are positively
correlated with speed limit
Both the bodies and brains of men
and women differ in many aspects
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What is Hypotheses?
A HYPOTHESIS is a prediction of a relationship
between one or more factors and the problem
under study that can be tested.
Hypotheses can take various forms, depending
on the question being asked and the type of
study being conducted.
A key feature of all hypotheses is that each
must make a prediction.
These predictions are then tested by gathering
and analyzing data, and the hypotheses can
either be supported or refuted on the basis of
the data.
Characteristics of hypotheses
Directional hypothesis
Cardiac patients who receive support
from former patients have less anxiety
and higher self-efficacy than other
patients
Non-directional hypothesis
There is a difference in anxiety and
self-efficacy between cardiac patients
who receive support from former
patients and those who do not
Research vs. Statistical
Hypotheses
Research hypothesis = scientific
hypothesis
Statement about the expected
relationship of the variables
Can be directional or nondirectional
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Research Objectives
Determine the factors affecting running
speed of vehicles on urban streets.
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TYPES
1. General objective: states what researchers
expect to achieve by the study in general
terms.
2. Specific objectives: smaller, logically
connected parts of general objective. They
are the specific aspects of the topic that we
want to study within the framework of our
study
Specific objectives should systematically
address the various aspects of the problem.
They should specify what we will do in our
study, where and for what purpose.
Example
http://www.writing.engr.psu.edu/w
orkbooks/proposal.samples.html
References
http://www.shoreline.edu/eng102/sampthes
is.htm
www.newagepublishers.com/samplechapter
/000896.pdf (Research Methodology - An
Introduction)
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialscience
s/2011/06/20/essential-guide-writing-good-
abstracts/
Ranjit Kumar (Research Methodology- A
Step by Step guide for Beginners)
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