INDEPENDENT PROJECT Chapter one

OUTLINE
Introduction To Research Methods
Scientific methods
Guide line for writing Research proposal
Guide line for writing Thesis
Ethics in Research
INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH METHODS
Research is a very general term for an activity that involves finding out, in a
more or less systematic way, things you did not know.
A more academic interpretation is that research involves finding out about things
that no-one else knew either.
It is about advancing the frontiers of knowledge.
Research methods are the techniques you use to do research.
They represent the tools of the trade, and provide you with ways to collect, sort
and analyze information so that you can come to some conclusions.
If you use the right sort of methods for your particular type of research, then you
should be able to convince other people that your conclusions have some validity.
OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH
The purpose of research is to discover answers to questions through the application
of scientific procedures.
The main aim of research is to find out the truth which is hidden and which has not
been discovered yet.
Though each research study has its own specific purpose, we may think of
research objectives as falling into a number of following broad groupings:
To gain familiarity with a phenomenon or to achieve new insights into it
To show accurately the characteristics of situation or a group
To determine the frequency with which something occurs
To test a hypothesis of a causal relationship between variables
MOTIVATION IN RESEARCH
What makes people to undertake research?
Desire to get a research degree
Desire to face the challenge in solving the unsolved problems,
Desire to get intellectual joy of doing some creative work;
Desire to be of service to society;
Desire to get respectability.
Directives of government,
Employment conditions,
Curiosity
Desire to understand causal relationships, social thinking.
RESEARCH METHODS VS METHODOLOGY
Research methods may be understood as all those methods/techniques that are used
for conduction of research.
thus, refer to the methods the researchers use in performing research operations.
Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem. It may
be understood as a science of studying how research is done scientifically.
In it we study the various steps that are generally adopted by a researcher in
studying his research problem along with the logic behind them.
RESEARCH VS. DEVELOPMENT (R&D)
The primary research objective is to investigate scientic advance, i.e. to add
previously unknown facts to the knowledge of mankind.
Development in engineering is the application of established engineering
methodologies to solve technical problem and create products.
It is usually accompanied by requirements analysis, functional requirements, non-
functional requirements, system specication, design space exploration, hardware-
software design, design to cost, formal verication, system and module testing,
compliance testing, in-eld testing, quality assurance, acceptance testing.