Friday, January 23, 2015

ResearchMethods: What is Research? (W3-P4) Sp15

Research is:

“Disciplined inquiry...studying something in a planned manner and reporting it so that others can replicate the process” (Frey et al.)

Keywords: planned, reporting and replicate
What do they mean in this context?

Research, as discussed here, is more than "research" done at the library.  Instead of reading through books and online materials for answers that some other researcher has found, you conduct original research on your own to find the answer.  That is, you conduct an experiment or a survey or a textual analysis or some other research method to find the answer.  Somebody is not telling you an answer in a book or report, you are finding the answer to your research question on your own.

Two types: 
  • Scholarly 
    • conducted to promote public access to new knowledge
    • usually conducted by a professor at a university
  • Proprietary
    • conducted for a specific audience, results not shared
    • usually conducted by a researcher at a company

Why are results not shared in proprietary research?
Could you give examples of each of the two types?
Which of the two types of research would you be more likely to do in the future?

How does this discussion of research relate to the earlier discussion of science?  Are the doing research as defined above?

How's this definition of research relate to the MythBusters clip shown earlier?


If you are interested, see also Do Larger Breasts Equal Bigger Tips? | MythBusters


Share this post with others. See the Twitter, Facebook and other buttons below.
Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.






No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comment.
Your comment will be reviewed.
If acceptable, it will be posted after it is carefully reviewed. The review process may take a few minutes or maybe a day or two.