Components of Research

From GSLISWiki

What is research? What kinds of research are there? What goes into researching? How do you do it? Hopefully, some of these questions will be answered on this page.

1 Research Process
2 Scientific Information Lifecycle
3 Les Gasser's Description of How To Do Research
4 Approaches to Research
- 4.1 Types of Research
- 4.2 Research Mindsets
5 Related Links

[edit] Research Process

Making observations about the world.
1. What is there? What exists?
2. Some Research Methods are ways of collecting information about the world.
3. Descriptive Studies are concerned with making observations about the world
4. Entire branches of science are largely concerned with making observations about the world, including Naturalism (Ethology), Anthropology, Geology, and Astronomy.
Developing a prediction about how the world works (developing a hypothesis)
Testing the prediction about how the world works (running an experiment)
1. Other Research Methods are different ways you can test predictions, different ways of constructing experiments.
If it holds true, developing an explanation for the prediction (developing a theory)
1. This can be done earlier, though it is often a better idea to leave it until later so that you don't confound the hypothesis with the theory, and so that you don't allow your love for your theory to cloud your judgement as to whether the hypothesis has been verified.

Publication of results can come at any point where significant work has been accomplished. See the Academic Publications page for more details.

[edit] Scientific Information Lifecycle

Excerpt from a post by Linda Smith on the "GSLIS Discussions" BB:

Subject: Re: information lifecycle citation

[...]

Not necessarily a definitive citation, but diagrams I have found helpful when teaching science reference:

http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/usered/grad/researchskills/flow_of_info.html

http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/environment/imt220/pubcycle.jpg [1]

Linda

[edit] Les Gasser's Description of How To Do Research

(under revision for now)

[edit] Approaches to Research

[edit] Types of Research

Looking for Emergent Structures vs. working within an existing theoretical framework vs. creating an a priori conception of the world and then testing it out.
- See Allen's thoughts recorded on the Thesis page for a relevant discussion.

[edit] Research Mindsets

None of these types is mutually exclusive, and many individuals and departments fall into more than one of these categories in practice. However, the distinctions are important because it helps clarify the different types of practice, and the mindsets that are inherrent within them.

The latter two categories are my creation, but the first two are generally agreed upon, at least in the Sciences and in Engineering. -Ingbert

[edit] Scientific Research

Scientists are concerned with describing what exists in the world, in developing models which can successfully predict what will happen in certain circumstances, and in developing theories to explain why the models work.

I would argue that the point of science and its usefulness derives from describing the world and developing models which make successful predictions. Theorising is simply the creation of a conceptual framework to allow us to intuitively understand the models and remember how they work. While this is important for us as human beings in enabling us to use science, it does not mean that our theories or conceptual models actually correspond to how the world works. If this is true, it may be possible for us to have many successful models of the world that work, but never be able to have a single, comprehensive, consistent theory about how the world works, simply because our brains are not constructed to always think consistently about everything.

ok, this is a very bad analogy, but it is the best I can come up with right now:

You can think of our brains more as a patchwork quilt--each panel looks and acts differently (has different mechanisms, functionality, specializations), but together they create an item which is superb in serving certain purposes (keeping an animal warm/thinking about the world to ensure successful reproduction).

-Ingbert

Examples include: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Psychology/Cognitive Science, Social Science, Economics, etc.

[edit] Engineering Research

Engineers are more concerned with learning about how the world works in specific circumstances in order to apply their knowledge to build something, create something, or solve a specific problem. Their knowledge might be generalizable, but they judge the usefulness of their knowledge based on how well it solves a problem.

Examples include: Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Social Policy, Business, etc.

[edit] Mechanics Research

Mechanics are people who like studying an existing system in order to be able to fix it, or make it work better, or make it work differently. They do not want to build anything new, they just want to tinker, to improve, to fix, to cure, to play within.

Examples include: Auto Mechanics, Doctors, Lawyers, Lobbyists, Managers, etc.

I would classify a car nut who builds his own cars or car parts from scratch as an engineer. -Ingbert

[edit] Formal Systems Research

These people like to create or work within formal systems. Often the goal is to create systems which are internally complete and help sort out disctinctions which otherwise would not be made or be able to be made.