1. Research Methodology
Dr. Qazi Muhammad Moinuddin

2. What Research Is?
Research is:
“…the systematic process of collecting and analyzing
information (data) in order to increase our
understanding of the phenomenon about which we
are concerned or interested”. (Leedy, P.D., et al,
2009)
Leedy P. D. and Ormrod J. E., Practical Research: Planning and Design, 9Leedy P. D. and Ormrod J. E., Practical Research: Planning and Design, 9thth
edition, 2009, Wileyedition, 2009, Wiley
Chichester, UK.Chichester, UK.

3. What is Research?
• When you start your research, the task may be
overwhelming.
– How do I find my topic?
– Where do I find information on it?
– What do I do with it when I find it?
• Even experienced researchers feel anxious when they
tackle a new project.

4. Research Basics
• What Research Is Not?
• Research isn’t information gathering:
– Gathering information from resources such as
books or magazines isn’t research.
• No contribution to new knowledge.
• Research isn’t the transportation of facts:
– Merely transporting facts from one resource to
another doesn’t constitute research.

5. Research Characteristics
• Originates with a question or problem.
• Requires clear articulation of a goal.
• Follows a specific plan or procedure.
• Often divides main problem into subproblems.
• Guided by research question, and/or hypothesis.
• Requires collection and interpretation of data.
• Writing-up in academic style rather than market research style
• Conclusions, Knowledge contributions or claims.
• Recommendations (Government, Methodological,
Managerial, etc.)

6. Research Topics / Problems
Research begins with a Problem.
– This problem need not be Earth-shaking.
– You are not reinventing a wheel.
Identifying this problem can actually be the hardest part of
your research.

7. Good-Quality Research
Good research requires:
– The scope and limitations of the work clearly defined.
– Data be adequately analyzed and explained.
– A thoroughly planned design that is as objective as
possible.
– The process to be clearly explained so that it can be
reproduced and verified by other researchers.
– All findings be presented unambiguously
– Conclusions be justified by sufficient evidence.
– Ethical standards be applied.
– All limitations be documented.

8. Research Concepts

9. Thinking like a Researcher
If we ignore supernatural inspiration, intuition is based on
two things: experience and Intelligence. The more
experience I have with you, the more likely I am to
encounter repetition of activities and situations that help
me learn about you. The smarter I am, the more I can
abstract from these experiences to find connections and
patterns among them.
Jeffry Bradshaw, creator of the software that searches
database.

10. Curiosity is necessary to be a good Researcher

11. Contents of a Research
• Idea Generation
• Research Topic
• Problem Statement
• Literature Review
• Hypothesis/Proposition/Research Question
• Acquire Data
• Pilot Testing
• Data Collection
• Data Analysis
• Data Interpretation and Hypothesis Support
• Writing-Up

12. Idea Generation
An idea in researchers mind or a question, for
which researcher has no answer and trying to find
out the answers.
The question or idea needs to be converted to an
appropriate topic and then to a problem statement
like that documented in a Research Proposal.

13. Research Topics / Problems
Research begins with a Problem.
– This problem need not be Earth-shaking.
– You are not reinventing a wheel.
Identifying this problem can actually be the hardest part of
your research.

14. Research Topics
– Finding a Research Topic:
• Observations
• Literature Reviews
• Conferences
• Supervisor Meetings
• Friends Discussions, etc

15. Stating the Research Problem
• Once you’ve identified a research Topic/problem:
– State the problem clearly and completely
– Determine the feasibility of the research
• Identify subproblems:
– Completely researchable units
– Methodology
– Must be clearly tied to the interpretation of the
data.
– Expected Output

16. Literature Review
A literature review is a necessity.
Without this step, you won’t know if your
problem has been solved or what related
research is already underway.

17. When performing the review:
• Start searching professional journals.
• Begin with the most recent articles you can find.
• Keep track of relevant articles in a bibliography.
• Don’t be discouraged if work on the topic is already
underway.
Literature Review

18. Literature Review
• A Literature Review is a body of text that aims
to review the critical points of current
knowledge on a particular topic.
• Literature reviews are secondary sources, and
as such, do not report any new or original
experimental work.

19. Most often associated with science-oriented
literature, such as a thesis, the literature review
usually precedes a research proposal,
methodology and results section. Its ultimate goal
is to bring the reader up to date with current
literature on a topic and forms the basis for
another goal, such as future research that may be
Literature Review

20. Literature Review Pitfalls
• The Internet can be a good source of information. It is
also full poor research.
• Make sure you verify the claims of any documentation
that has not been peer reviewed by other professionals in
the area of study.
• Be very careful to check your sources when doing your
literature review. Wrong interpretation of any source will
cause Plagiarism.

21. Hypotheses and Research Question/s
• Hypotheses are tentative, intelligent guesses as to the
solution of the problem.
• Research Questions are the intelligent questions asking by
himself/herself by researcher in order to answer the
questions throughout research.

22. Hypotheses/Research Questions / Propositions
• The researcher generates hypotheses to describe a
solution to the problem identified.
• This is at best a temporary solution since there is
as yet no evidence to support either the acceptance
or rejection of these hypotheses.

23. Propositions / Hypotheses
Proposition is an statement about observable
phenomenon (Concepts) that may be judged
as true or false. When a proposition is
formulated for empirical testing, we call it a
hypothesis.

24. Hypothesis/Propositions are often derived
from LR
Example:
Nano-science and nano-technology are
related, but essentially separate activities,
with little direct interaction between them.
Hypotheses/Research Questions / Propositions

25. Acquire Data
• The researcher now begins to gather data relating to
the research problem.
• The means of data acquisition will often change based
on the type of the research problem.
• This might entail only data gathering, but it could also
require the creation of new measurement instruments.

26. Pilot Testing
• The data-gathering phase of the research
process typically begins with pilot testing.
• A pilot test is conducted to detect weaknesses
in design and instrumentation and to provide
proxy data for selection of a probability sample.

27. Pilot Testing
• If the study is a survey to be executed by mail, the
pilot questionnaire should be mailed.
• The size of the pilot group may range from 25 to 100
subjects, depending on the method to be tested, but
the respondents do not have to be statistically
selected.

28. Pilot Testing
• In very small populations or special applications, pilot
testing runs risk of exhausting the supply of
respondents and sensitizing them to the purpose of
study.
• This risk is generally overshadowed by the
improvements made to the design by a trial run.

29. Pilot Testing
• There are a number of variations on pilot
testing.
• One form, pretesting, may rely on colleagues,
respondents surrogates, or actual respondents to
refine a measuring instrument.

30. Pilot Testing
• This important activity has saved countless survey studies
from disaster by using the suggestions of the respondents
to identify and change confusing, awkward, or offensive
questions and techniques.
• Pretesting may be repeated several times to refine
questions, instruments, or procedures.

31. Data Collection
The gathering of data may range from a
simple observation at one location to a
survey of multinational corporations at
sites in different parts of the world.

32. Data Collection
The method selected will largely determine how
the data are collected.
Questionnaires, standardized tests, observational
forms, laboratory tests, and instrument calibration
logs are among the devices used to record raw
data.

33. Data Collection
What is data?
One writer defines data as the facts presented to the
researcher from the study‘s environment.
Data are edited to ensure consistency across respondents
and to locate omissions.

34. Data Collection
• In case of survey methods, editing data reduces errors in
the recording, improves legibility, and
clarifies unclear and inappropriate responses.
• Edited data are then put into a form that
makes analysis possible.
• Because it is impractical to place raw data into a report.

35. Data Analysis
• The data that were gathered in the previous step are
analyzed as a first step in determining their meaning.
• As before, the analysis of the data does not constitute
research.
• This is basic number crunching.
• Still a part of the research.

36. Data Analysis
• Examiners / Managers need information, not raw data.
• Researchers generate information by analyzing data after
its collection.
• Data analysis usually involves reducing accumulated data
to a manageable size, developing summaries, looking for
patterns, and applying statistical techniques.

37. Data Analysis
• Scaled responses on questionnaires and experimental
instruments often require the analyst to derive various
functions, as well as to explore relationships among
variables.
• Further, researchers must interpret these findings in light
of the research question or determine if the results are
consistent with their hypotheses and theories.

38. Data Interpretation and
Hypothesis Support
• The researcher interprets the newly analyzed data
and suggests a conclusion.
• The data will either support the hypotheses or
they won’t.

39. If the data not supporting the Hypothesis, this may
lead the researcher to cycle back to an earlier step in
the process and begin again with a new hypothesis.
This is one of the self-correcting mechanisms
associated with the scientific method.
Data Interpretation and
Hypothesis Support

40. Few Important Terms

41. Limitations
• All research has limitations and thus certain work that
will not be performed.
• The work that will not be undertaken is described as
the limitations of the research.

42. Definitions
Define each technical term as it is used in relation to your
research project.
This helps remove significant ambiguity from the
research itself by ensuring that reviewers, while they may
not agree with your definitions, at least know what you’re
talking about.

43. Assumptions
• Assumptions are those things that the researcher is taking
for granted.
• For example: a given test instrument accurately and
consistently measures the phenomenon in question.
• As a general rule you’re better off documenting an
assumption than ignoring it.
• Overlooked assumptions provide a prime source of
debate about a research project’s results.

44. Importance of the Study
Justification, why this kind of research?
• Why relevant?
• What is the practical value of your research?
• Without this justification, it will prove difficult to
convince others that the problem in question is
worth study.

45. Methodologies in Social Science
Research

46. • Generally Methodologies applied in Social
Sciences or Science, technology and innovation
Policy and Management Research are same.
• Methodologies are high-level approaches to
conducting research.
• The individual steps within the methodology
might vary based on the research being
performed.

47. Common Methodologies
• Two commonly used research methodologies in
Social Sciences or Science Policy and
Management Studies are:
• Quantitative and Qualitative
• Patent Citation Analysis is a Purely Policy and
Innovation Management tool to analyze the
Science and Technology developments.

48. Methodology Comparison
Quantitative
Explanation, prediction
Test theories
Known variables
Large sample
Standardized
instruments
Deductive
Approach: Positivism
Qualitative
Explanation, description
Build theories
Unknown variables
Small sample
Observations, interviews
Inductive
Approach: Interpretivism

49. Common Problems in Academic Writing
• No theory or conceptual development
• less arguments or only one way of thinking
• No clear research question/hypothesis/proposition
• Shopping list or descriptive
– Most topics are broad so the number of facts are numerous
and their recounting soon looks like a long shopping list or
description of the way the world ‘is’.

50. Common Problems in Academic Writing
‘Journalistic’
• In the style of a newspaper article which aims only at
reciting the facts (without any conceptual framework
for organising the facts or drawing conclusions from
them)
‘Lack of conclusions’
• There is little for a conclusion because there wasn’t a
question and the ‘facts speak for themselves’

51. Research Process
• Research is an extremely cyclic process.
• Later stages might necessitate a review of
earlier work.
• Because of the cyclic nature of research, it
can be difficult to determine where to start
and when to stop.

52. Research Process
Idea Generation
Topic Identification
Literature Review
Research Question Creation and Refinement
Data gathering and hypothesis testing
Planning the ‘write up’
Constructing the text
Constructing graphics
Theoretical and Conceptual Development
Completion
Empirical
Research
Theoretical
Research
Research
Planning
Writing
Process