Reliance of emerging knowledge

Third, Figure 1.1 also illustrates that at each stage of the research process, researchers draw on the relevant scientific body of knowledge. At each stage of research, you will need to search for and apply knowledge related to the tasks you are doing at that stage. At the beginning, you will want to review the research literature so you can place your research in the context of previous research; at the design stage, you will want to look at how previous researchers designed their research. When you analyze your data, you will want to see how others did analyses similar to the ones you are planning to do. The same point holds when you prepare to interpret your findings and develop your conclusions.   What did other researchers on topics similar to yours find? How did they interpret their findings? What conclusions did they draw? In this way, researchers constantly review and draw upon the accumulating body of social science information.

Figure 1.1. Stages in the research process

Professor Trochim presents an alternative way of viewing the research process. In the Structure of Research, he describes the process of research as resembling the shape of an hour glass; researchers start with a broad question, narrow the focus to a specific problem or question, convert this to an hypothesis which further restricts the inquiry, and then develop measures and collect data for testing the hypothesis; following analysis of the data, the focus broadens again with the formulation of conclusions and generalizations from the investigation

Internet Resources

Previously in this chapter we referred to three Web sites containing alternative and additional information on scientific inquiry and the application of the scientific method.   Web sites accessible through the Internet are now a valuable source of information on many social research topics. You can copy, download, or printout what you want. For researchers in developing countries, where libraries have limited collections of books and journals, the Internet can provide immediate, free access to valuable information that otherwise would not be available. Also, information on millions of valuable Web sites is free.

If you don't know how to use the Internet, go to Help Internet for help in searching the Internet. If you know how to move around the Internet, you might want to view some additional sites that discuss scientific inquiry and the scientific method, using www.google.com of some other search engine.

PREV       NEXT

---