In research process, the first and foremost step happens to be that of selecting and properly defining a research problem. A researcher must find the problem and formulate it so that it becomes susceptible to research. Like a medical doctor, a researcher must examine all the symptoms (presented to him or observed by him) concerning a problem before he can diagnose correctly. To define a problem correctly, a researcher must know: what a problem is?
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
What is a research problem? A research problem, in general, refers to some difficulty which a researcher experiences in the context of either a theoretical or practical situation and wants to obtain a solution for the same.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
A research problem exists if following conditions are met: • There must be an individual (or a group or an organisation), let us call it ‘I,’ to whom the problem can be attributed. The individual or the organisation, as the case may be, occupies an environment, say ‘N’, which is defined by values of the uncontrolled variables, Yj. • There must be at least two courses of action, say C1 and C2, to be pursued. A course of action is defined by one or more values of the controlled variables. For example, the number of items purchased at a specified time is said to be one course of action. • There must be at least two possible outcomes, say O1 and O2, of the course of action, of which one should be preferable to the other. In other words, this means that there must be at least one outcome that the researcher wants, i.e., an objective. Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi • The courses of action available must provides some chance of obtaining the objective, but they cannot provide the same chance, otherwise the choice would not matter. Thus, if P (Oj | I, Cj, N) represents the probability that an outcome Oj will occur, if I select Cj in N, then P(O1| I , C1, N) ≠ P(O1| I , C2 , N). In simple words, we can say that the choices must have unequal efficiencies for the desired outcomes.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
The components of a research problem can be stated as: • There must be an individual or a group which has some difficulty or the problem. • There must be some objective(s) to be attained at. If one wants nothing, one cannot have a problem. • There must be alternative means (or the courses of action) for obtaining the objective(s) one wishes to attain. This means that there must be at least two means available to a researcher for if he has no choice of means, he cannot have a problem. • There must remain some doubt in the mind of a researcher with regard to the selection of alternatives. This means that research must answer the question concerning the relative efficiency of the possible alternatives. • There must be some environment(s) to which the difficulty pertains.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Thus, a research problem is one which requires a researcher to find out the best solution for the given problem, i.e., to find out by which course of action the objective can be attained optimally in the context of a given environment. There are several factors which may result in making the problem complicated.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Selecting the problem The research problem undertaken for study must be carefully selected. The task is a difficult one, although it may not appear to be so. Help may be taken from a research guide in this connection. A research guide can at the most only help a researcher choose a subject.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
The following points may be observed by a researcher in selecting a research problem or a subject for research: • Subject which is overdone should not be normally chosen, for it will be a difficult task to throw any new light in such a case. • Controversial subject should not become the choice of an average researcher. • Too narrow or too vague problems should be avoided.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• The subject selected for research should be familiar and feasible so that the related research material or sources of research are within one’s reach. Even then it is quite difficult to supply definitive ideas concerning how a researcher should obtain ideas for his research.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• The importance of the subject, the qualifications and the training of a researcher, the costs involved, the time factor are few other criteria that must also be considered in selecting a problem. In other words, before the final selection of a problem is done, a researcher must ask himself the following questions: 1. Whether he is well equipped in terms of his background to carry out the research? 2. Whether the study falls within the budget he can afford? 3. Whether the necessary cooperation can be obtained from those who must participate in research as subjects? If the answers to all these questions are in the affirmative, one may become sure so far as the practicability of the study is concerned.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• The selection of a problem must be preceded by a preliminary study. This may not be necessary when the problem requires the conduct of a research closely similar to one that has already been done. But when the field of inquiry is relatively new and does not have available a set of well developed techniques, a brief feasibility study must always be undertaken. If the subject for research is selected properly by observing the above mentioned points, the research will not be a boring drudgery, rather it will be love’s labour. In fact, zest for work is a must. The subject or the problem selected must involve the researcher and must have an upper most place in his mind so that he may undertake all pains needed for the study.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Necessity of defining the problem
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• The problem to be investigated must be defined unambiguously for that will help to discriminate relevant data from the irrelevant ones. • A proper definition of research problem will enable the researcher to be on the track whereas an ill-defined problem may create hurdles. Questions like: What data are to be collected? What characteristics of data are relevant and need to be studied? What relations are to be explored. What techniques are to be used for the purpose? and similar other questions crop up in the mind of the researcher who can well plan his strategy and find answers to all such questions only when the research problem has been well defined. • Thus, defining a research problem properly is a prerequisite for any study and is a step of the highest importance.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Techniques involved in defining a problem
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Defining a research problem properly and clearly is a crucial part of a research study and must in no case be accomplished hurriedly. However, in practice this a frequently overlooked which causes a lot of problems later on. Hence, the research problem should be defined in a systematic manner, giving due weightage to all relating points. • The technique for the purpose involves the undertaking of the following steps generally one after the other: i. statement of the problem in a general way; ii. understanding the nature of the problem; iii. surveying the available literature iv. developing the ideas through discussions; and v. rephrasing the research problem into a working proposition.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
i. Statement of the problem in a general way • First of all the problem should be stated in a broad general way, keeping in view either some practical concern or some scientific or intellectual interest. For this purpose, the researcher must immerse himself thoroughly in the subject matter concerning which he wishes to pose a problem. • In case of social research, it is considered advisable to do some field observation and as such the researcher may undertake some sort of preliminary survey or what is often called pilot survey. Then the researcher can himself state the problem or he can seek the guidance of the guide or the subject expert in accomplishing this task. • Often, the guide puts forth the problem in general terms, and it is then up to the researcher to narrow it down and phrase the problem in operational terms.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• In case there is some directive from an organisational authority, the problem then can be stated accordingly. The problem stated in a broad general way may contain various ambiguities which must be resolved by cool thinking and rethinking over the problem. • At the same time the feasibility of a particular solution has to be considered and the same should be kept in view while stating the problem.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
ii. Understanding the nature of the problem • The next step in defining the problem is to understand its origin and nature clearly. The best way of understanding the problem is to discuss it with those who first raised it in order to find out how the problem originally came about and with what objectives in view. • If the researcher has stated the problem himself, he should consider once again all those points that induced him to make a general statement concerning the problem. • For a better understanding of the nature of the problem involved, he can enter into discussion with those who have a good knowledge of the problem concerned or similar other problems. • The researcher should also keep in view the environment within which the problem is to be studied and understood. Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi iii. Surveying the available literature • All available literature concerning the problem at hand must necessarily be surveyed and examined before a definition of the research problem is given. This means that the researcher must be well-conversant with relevant theories in the field, reports and records as also all other relevant literature. This is done to find out what data and other materials, if any, are available for operational purposes. • This would also help a researcher to know if there are certain gaps in the theories, or whether the existing theories applicable to the problem under study are inconsistent with each other, or whether the findings of the different studies do not follow a pattern consistent with the theoretical expectations and so on. • Studies on related problems are useful for indicating the type of difficulties that may be encountered in the present study as also the possible analytical shortcomings. At times such studies may also suggest useful and even new lines of approach to the present problem. Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi iv. Developing the ideas through discussions • Discussion concerning a problem often produces useful information. Various new ideas can be developed through such an exercise. Hence, a researcher must discuss his problem with his colleagues and others who have enough experience in the same area or in working on similar problems. This is quite often known as an experience survey. • People with rich experience are in a position to enlighten the researcher on different aspects of his proposed study and their advice and comments are usually invaluable to the researcher. They help him sharpen his focus of attention on specific aspects within the field. • Discussions with such persons should not only be confined to the formulation of the specific problem at hand, but should also be concerned with the general approach to the given problem, techniques that might be used, possible solutions, etc.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
v. Rephrasing the research problem • Finally, the researcher must sit to rephrase the research problem into a working proposition. Once the nature of the problem has been clearly understood, the environment (within which the problem has got to be studied) has been defined, discussions over the problem have taken place and the available literature has been surveyed and examined, rephrasing the problem into analytical or operational terms is not a difficult task. • Through rephrasing, the researcher puts the research problem in as specific terms as possible so that it may become operationally viable and may help in the development of working hypotheses.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• In addition to what has been stated above, the following points must also be observed while defining a research problem: (a)Technical terms and words or phrases, with special meanings used in the statement of the problem, should be clearly defined. (b) Basic assumptions or postulates (if any) relating to the research problem should be clearly stated. (c) A straight forward statement of the value of the investigation (i.e., the criteria for the selection of the problem) should be provided. (d) The suitability of the time-period and the sources of data available must also be considered by the researcher in defining the problem. (e) The scope of the investigation or the limits within which the problem is to be studied must be mentioned explicitly in defining a research problem.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Importance of literature review in defining a problem The literature review is a critical discussion and summary of statistical literature that is of ‘general’ and ‘specialized’ relevance to the particular area and topic of the research problem in statistics.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
The literature review is important because: • It describes how the proposed research is related to prior research in statistics. • It shows the originality and relevance of your research problem. Specifically, individual research is different from other statisticians. • It justifies proposed methodology. • It demonstrates preparedness to complete the research.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• The purpose of a literature review is to: 1. Provide foundation of knowledge on topic 2. Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication and give credit to other researchers 3. Identify inconstancies: gaps in research, conflicts in previous studies, open questions left from other research 4. Identify need for additional research (justifying your research) 5. Identify the relationship of works in context of its contribution to the topic and to other works 6. Place your own research within the context of existing literature making a case for why further study is needed. Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi Survey of Literature The literature review is performed in the steps mentioned in the next slides.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Determine the clear purpose of review. • Search, access and gather literature. • Skim through literature followed by a detailed reading of significant ones. • Notice similarities and differences in terms of methodologies, philosophies, claims, choice and interpretation of evidence, reliability, etc. • Observe gaps in research or areas that require further study. • Note any particular issue or problem that stands out.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Look for prompt to compare texts in general or hone in on a specific issue or question. • Avoid going back and forth and changing direction and focus of review / research problem. • Notes taking with categorisation/ classification and creating structure (Keep track of sources by writing a brief summary for each). • Note significance of each work to the research problem (The amount of space dedicated in review should be in proportion to its significance within the body of literature).
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Build References database: Working bibliography; Cyclic method of building references; Eliminating duplication; Managing reference with Styles. • Build a database of notes integrating references, text, quotes and comments (Make a table or chart to map how different sources relate to/contrast with one another).
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Primary and secondary sources of data
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Primary sources provide raw information and first-hand evidence. Examples include interview transcripts, statistical data, and works of art. A primary source gives you direct access to the subject of your research. • Secondary sources provide second-hand information and commentary from other researchers. Examples include journal articles, reviews, and academic books. A secondary source describes, interprets, or synthesizes primary sources. • Primary sources are more credible as evidence, but good research uses both primary and secondary sources.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• A primary source is anything that gives you direct evidence about the people, events, or phenomena that you are researching. Primary sources will usually be the main objects of your analysis. • If you are researching the past, you cannot directly access it yourself, so you need primary sources that were produced at the time by participants or witnesses (e.g. letters, photographs, newspapers). • If you are researching something current, your primary sources can either be qualitative or quantitative data that you collect yourself (e.g. through interviews, surveys, experiments) or sources produced by people directly involved in the topic (e.g. official documents or media texts).
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• A secondary source is anything that describes, interprets, evaluates, or analyses information from primary sources. Common examples include: Books, articles and documentaries that synthesize information on a topic Synopses and descriptions of artistic works Encyclopaedias and textbooks that summarize information and ideas Reviews and essays that evaluate or interpret something • When you cite a secondary source, it’s usually not to analyze it directly. Instead, you’ll probably test its arguments against new evidence or use its ideas to help formulate your own.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Primary source Secondary source Novel Article analyzing the novel Painting Exhibition catalog explaining the painting Letters and diaries written by a historical figure Biography of the historical figure Essay by a philosopher Textbook summarizing the philosopher’s ideas Photographs of a historical event Documentary about the historical event Government documents about a new policy Newspaper article about the new policy Music recordings Academic book about the musical style Results of an opinion poll Blog post interpreting the results of the poll Empirical study Literature review that cites the study
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Reviews, Treatise, Monographs and Patents
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Reviews • A review is a subject survey of the primary literature usually covering the material that was published since the most recent review on the same subject. • A good review accumulates, digests, and correlates the current literature and indicates the direction future research may take. • A critical or evaluative review by a competent author is an important aid in keeping up with the work being done in a particular field and in spotting the outstanding developments. • A review may appear as one of a collection of more or less related papers in an annual, a quarterly, or monthly series, or it may appear as an article in a regularly issued primary-source subjects journal.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Review reference lists are often extensive and, in a way, form a definitive bibliography of the subject for the period covered. • One shortcoming of a review, though, is the inevitable delay before comprehensive and critical coverage of the primary literature can be obtained; one hindrance in getting a good review is the difficulty in finding a qualified specialist with both the time and literature searching competence to do the job. • Nevertheless, information experts believe that reviews are and will continue to be an important part of the literature of science and technology.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Treatise • A treatise is a comprehensive, authoritative, systematic, well-documented compilation or summary of known information on a subject, covering it so completely that the work becomes definitive at the time of writing. • Thus a treatise is an aid in acquiring a foundation in a subject adequate to enable a trained individual to carry on advanced research; at the same time, it is a source of facts, procedures, theories, and other important data, presented in such a way to show their development, correlation, and probable reliability.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• A treatise combines characteristics of an advanced textbook and handbook; in fact, certain multi-volume German Handbücher and certain multivolume British textbooks are good examples of treatises. One drawback to a treatise is that it is soon out-of-date. • By the time the last part of a multipart treatise is published, the first parts are already quite old. Here, too, the time lag is unavoidable because of the scholarly inventory nature of the work itself. • Periodic supplements and occasional new editions of the whole or of consecutive parts help overcome this lack of recency of the basic work, and so long as the dates of publication and the probable value of the original sources are clearly brought out, the usefulness of a treatise will not be impaired.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Monographs • A monograph, in effect, is a short treatise on a particular subject, a single division or part of a larger branch of knowledge. Hence it can be more up to date when it is published and can be brought up to date more easily for a revised edition; it frequently is published as part of a series. Almost any book on a special topic may be called a monograph unless obviously it is something else.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Research monographs. These are separately published reports on original research that are too long, too specialized, or otherwise unsuitable for publication in one of the standard journals. Each monograph is self-contained, frequently summarizes existing theory or practice before presenting the author’s original and previously unpublished work, and is likely to be one of a series in the same field.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Patents • Patents are considered part of the primary-source literatures, since an invention must be new in order to be patented and more often than not there will be no other published description either of the idea or of its application. • Patents are sources of information about new products, microorganisms, and chemical compositions. Announcement publications, abstracts journals, and the individual patents are available from the various patent offices and in selected depository libraries, but extensive patent searches require knowledge of both the subject field and patent law, as well as much time. • There are more than 130 patenting authorities in the world.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Web as a source
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• The web is one of the services running on the internet using the hypertext and certain other protocols for electronic access and communication. It has been possible because the web exploits reproductive and regenerative capacities of computer. • Now in the second decade of this century we have already seen how ICT is revolutionizing the field of research and scholarly communication. With the arrival of web 2.0 or the semantic web and various networked reading devices like the Kindle, iPad, e-book readers and even mobile phones, we are becoming more and more dependent on a networked system like the web. • The online medium is fundamentally different from the print medium and a researcher faces certain problems in using it because of the virtual and volatile nature of the contents. Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi Searching the web • The web has been conceived of and created as an interconnected network of resources and that is why we get the protocol ‘URL’ as Uniform Resource Locator. While explaining URL Tim Berners-Lee and his team defined a web resource as “…anything that has identity. Familiar examples include an electronic document, an image, a service (e.g., “today’s weather report for Los Angeles”), and a collection of other resources. ” (Lee) • So theoretically we can make use of any resource available on the web for our research having an ‘identity’. Though web resources are found in unorganized forms, for our convenience we can divide them into certain types:
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Digital libraries: Digital libraries are being created as a full-fledged alternative to the traditional physical library system for accessing a variety of materials (original texts, creative works, movies, paintings, music albums, etc.) in various formats. Notable examples are: Project Gutenberg, The Perseus Project, ILEJ: Internet Library of Early Journals etc. • Online Archives: Just like digital libraries, archives are also being created online as an alternative to traditional archives. However, an online archive may function just like a digital library and the difference may be just in name. Famous archives on the web are: Internet Archive, The Oxford Text Archive, Poetry Archives, • Full text databases: A full-text database is a compilation of documents or other information in the form of a database in which the complete text of each referenced document is available for online viewing, printing, or downloading. In addition to text documents, images are often included, such as graphs, maps, photos, and diagrams JSTOR, ARTstor, Project muse, EBSCOHost.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Independent scholarly sites: The publishing technology of the web has facilitated the rise of many e-zines and e-journals. Many of them has transferred from the print to the web edition. Even it has become a practice for many established newspapers, magazines and journals to being out web editions. • Format specific repositories: Because of the worldwide demand for certain types of resources, many format specific large sites have come up with special services; for example, Flickr and Picasa (photo sharing sites), Youtube (video sharing sites). • Social networking sites: In the early days of social networking certain sites like Myspace, Orkut, Facebook were avoided by scholars because of unscholarly nature of the contents generated there. But now some of the materials can be used for scholarly purposes; for instance, the post of a famous writer or a communicated message. Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi • Personal sites: Many authors and critics now maintain personal sites or blogs for communication with readers or for advertising. A researcher can make use of those resources. • General websites: Depending upon the kind of research information available on general websites can be used for the purpose of research. • Wiki Sites: There are many sites like Wikipedia which run on the Wiki software for collaborative publishing. Researchers may consult those sites but should avoid citing them as source of research because the wikis are frequently updated by writers of dubious identity and intentions without proper control of an editorial authority. Of course it records the history of edits, but still they cannot be used for citations because of the lack authority.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• The resources available on those location can be used both for primary and secondary sources depending upon the kind of research. But the problem is that a particular resource may not be scholarly at all or may have dubious existence. More importantly, the web resources may not have stable existence and may change or may disappear altogether.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Identifying gap areas from literature review
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
What is a ‘gap’ in literature? • A gap is something that remains to be done or learned in an area of research; it’s a gap in the knowledge of the scientists in the field of research of your study. Every research project must, in some way, address a gap–that is, attempt to fill in some piece of information missing in the scientific literature. Otherwise, it is not novel research and is therefore not contributing to the overall goals of science.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• A gap statement is found in the Introduction section of a journal article or poster or in the Goals and Importance section of a research proposal and succinctly identifies for your audience the gap that you will attempt to address in your project. • A gap might be a lack of understanding about how well a particular instrument works in a certain situation. It could be introducing a new method that needs to be tested. Or it could be that you are studying a whole new organism, system, or part of a process. Your project may also address multiple gaps, in which case you should be sure to identify each of them clearly! • In a class, you might not always be studying something brand “new.” But, in most cases, you should still try to come up with something unique about your project, however small. Talk to your professor about what they expect for your gap statement if nothing seems to work.
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• An example gap from Hosaka, Itao, and Kuroda (1995): “… The relationship between the four damping factors, i.e. internal friction, support loss, airflow force in free space, and squeeze force, has not yet been clarified, so it is not obvious which one is dominant in actual microsystems.” • Here, the authors signal to us that this is a gap because they use the words “has not yet been clarified.” Other phrases that might help you identify (or form!) a gap statement are: 1. …has/have not been… (studied/reported/elucidated) 2. …is required/needed… 3. …the key question is/remains… 4. …it is important to address…
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Once you identify the gap in the literature, you must tell your audience how you attempt to at least somewhat address in your project this lack of knowledge or understanding. • Some phrases you can use to indicate your gap “fill:” 1. “We therefore analyzed…” 2. “In this study, we investigated…” 3. “Therefore, the goals of this study are…” 4. “In this paper, we report…” •
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
Development of working hypothesis
Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi
• Working hypothesis is tentative assumption made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences. As such the manner in which research hypotheses are developed is particularly important because; 1. They provide the focal point for research. 2. They also affect the manner in which tests must be conducted in the analysis of data and indirectly the quality of data which is required for the analysis. • Hypothesis should be very specific and limited to the piece of research in hand because it has to be tested. The role of the hypothesis is to guide the researcher by delimiting the area of research and to keep him on the right track. It sharpens his thinking and focuses attention on the more important facets of the problem. It also indicates the type of data required and the type of methods of data analysis to be used. Dept. of ECE, PDACE, Kalaburagi • How does one go about developing working hypotheses? The answer is by using the following approach: 1. Discussions with colleagues and experts about the problem, its origin and the objectives in seeking a solution; 2. Examination of data and records, if available, concerning the problem for possible trends, peculiarities and other clues; 3. Review of similar studies in the area or of the studies on similar problems; and 4. Exploratory personal investigation which involves original field interviews on a limited scale with interested parties and individuals with a view to secure greater insight into the practical aspects of the problem. • Thus, working hypotheses arise as a result of a-priori thinking about the subject, examination of the available data and material including related studies and the counsel of experts and interested parties.