50+ SAMPLE Scientific Research

What Is Scientific Research?

As defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization or UNESCO, research is a systematic and creative approach to increasing knowledge and understanding about humans, societies, and cultures and applying it to new areas of interest. As such, scientific research is a neutral, methodical, and organized process with several steps that utilize previously acquired knowledge that is non-existent in the available literature. It is observational and experimental concerning data collection methods, analytical and descriptive when talking about causality, and retrospective, prospective, and cross-dimensional with regards to time. Scientific research aims to uncover and provide an explanation about how and why things occur. It allows researchers to test, determine, and recreate certain phenomena to have a clear understanding. As a systematic process, it is a way to develop case studies and understand the situations better. Scientific research is the pillar of many sciences, including psychology and chemistry, that helps explain and prove assumptions and theories. It also provides possible solutions to existing problems.

According to the facts and figures from the UNESCO Science Report towards 2030, a record of over 7.8 million full-time scientific researchers is active during 2013, with a growth rate of 21 percent since 2017. For a bigger picture, researchers represent 0.1 percent of the total population.

Types of Scientific Research

Research in itself originates from the curious minds of human beings, intending to seek new knowledge and make discoveries. As it represents a systematic, innovative, and reconstructive technique, scientific research has different types that focus on specific information. The main classifications of scientific research are fundamental and applied research, further divided into quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research. There are also exploratory, descriptive, explanatory, longitudinal, cross-sectional, and action research, all of which have explanations below.

Fundamental research: Also called basic research, it aims to provide new scientific knowledge and theories, intending to extend the field of sciences into different fields. The purpose of fundamental research is to promote scientific approaches through the discovery of general principles and practices with less attention to applying these methods into action plans and actual practice. This type of scientific research is often performed in scientific institutions like laboratories with animals as subjects of multiple experiments. In the field of sciences, psychologists show the most interest in utilizing and conducting this type of research.Applied research: Applied research is a type of scientific research intending to provide urgent solutions to problems and perform the necessary actions. The applied research aims to solve various concerns using the information and findings from fundamental research. In a sense, applied research is the application of necessary procedures stemming from fundamental research. Instead of having a theoretical nature like fundamental research, applied research focuses on natural phenomena and scientific issues. This type of research is more outside of laboratories, dealing with social, political, cultural, or economic situations. Quantitative research: Quantitative research focuses on counting or measuring various aspects of daily life. In the quantitative research method, information comes from a series of predetermined concepts and studies, including hypotheses, validity, operational definitions, reliability, replication, significance, deductive analysis, and statistics. The outcomes and findings of quantitative research are results of systematic investigations by utilizing top-down methods.Qualitative research: Meanwhile, qualitative research focuses on argumentative descriptions that focus on discovering meanings and changes of social factors. The purpose of qualitative research is to describe and explain everyday phenomena of daily life by utilizing common sense, inductive reasoning and analysis, and comprehensive interpretations to create a hypothesis from undeterminable issues before experimentation.Mixed research: As the name suggests, mixed research is a combination of quantitative and qualitative research. The array of information is a blend of variables, words, and images. The goal of using mixed research is to improve the strengths and diminish the weaknesses of quantitative and qualitative research.Exploratory research: Exploratory research focuses on the absence or presence of events. It aims to solve unclear problems and provide probable solutions. As it is the most flexible and extensive type of research, different facets and industries make use of this type of research.Descriptive research: Using descriptive research, researchers study an object’s current state and then describe and interpret existing relationships and conditions surrounding the subject. Descriptive research examines phenomena by using comprehensive and detailed explanations and definitions with comparison to other events. The objective of descriptive research is to provide objective and realistic descriptions of characteristics of particular objects and situations. Explanatory research: Explanatory research focuses on identifying and explaining the cause and effect of events and the relationship of involved variables. This type of research is the study and transfer of complex notions and knowledge. The main objective of conducting explanatory research is to analyze and synthesize information from a barrage of sources to produce a study. It helps increase readers’ understanding and knowledge about particular subjects and similar research problems.Longitudinal research: Longitudinal research represents observational studies of persons or groups of persons over an extended period.Cross-sectional research: This type of scientific research is an example of an observational study that focuses on variables, according to prevalence and relevance, within a specific time frame and case group.Action research: Action research is a type of scientific research people conduct in socio-educational settings with the purpose to improve reasoning, equality in performing social and cultural practices, and to increase understanding of specific events.

Components of Scientific Research

Scientific research uses the scientific method to conduct comprehensive processes and techniques to obtain reliable and realistic results. Using the scientific method for scientific research consists of five elements, namely, observation, research problem, hypothesis, experimentation, and conclusion.

Observation: The observation section of the scientific research allows researchers and experimenters to gather useful information about certain principles the study needs to use. These literature reviews help predict, anticipate, and understand the possible outcome of the study. Researchers may choose to perform an independent research study or to utilize previous experiments similar to their subject before developing observations. Research problem: The research problem or research question is a specific inquiry that a researcher seeks to answer. It is one of the critical parts of research that helps define a definitive path to the research process. The research problem is the initial interrogation point of the study that sets the pace of the entire procedure. It focuses on the research to determine the methodology and hypothesis, guiding the study into gathering useful information for the investigation.Hypothesis: In its simplest definition, a hypothesis is an educated guess. It services to predict possible outcomes of the scientific research, stated in the scientific research in the form of a research statement or sentence. It uses observations before the experimentation to proclaim an assertion. After the experimentation, the researcher uses the results to decide whether to accept or reject the hypothesis.Experimentation: Also known as methodology, is the section of the scientific method that lists all materials and resources to execute the experiment. The material and resources for the experiments must have specific details and must clearly state and explain the procedures for experimenting. Properly executing the methodology allows researchers to produce accurate and meaningful results. The scientific research must also include a bulleted list of all experimental techniques.Conclusion: The conclusion of the scientific research contains the results and findings of the experiment. It comprises the interpretation of outcomes and data explanations. From there, researchers produce a conclusion. The conclusion indicates whether to accept or reject the initial hypothesis at the beginning of the research process. It displays all the results using visual aids like line graphs or Gantt charts to identify trends and relationships.

How To Perform a Scientific Research

Researchers conduct scientific research to contribute facts and information backed with substantial evidence and data. In conducting scientific research, there are different steps that researchers must utilize to achieve accurate and efficient results. Below is a helpful guide to conducting comprehensive scientific research.

  • 1. Plan the Research Project

    When planning for the research project, start with choosing a topic that brings interest. Depending on the field of study you wish to conduct, select from different sciences and even outside of it. As long as you can perform the research method, it is a viable subject for experimentation. Identify a research problem to be the focus of your research, with literature reviews and resources available to support your question. From the comprehensive literature research, revise your research problem as necessary to make it more specific. Construct a hypothesis, then formulate your research plan.

  • 2. Design Your Experimentation Process

    In designing your experiments, researchers must determine the sample size. The sample size serves as your experimental group. After making rough estimates for your sample group, identify all the necessary equipment, resources, and solutions. It is also advisable to indicate all experimental conditions, having a manageable number of testing opportunities for your experiment. Identify the control condition you expect to use for your groups. An experiment has one variable with multiple control to see possible and significant changes. Define the outcome of the study and experiments to indicate whether the procedures are successful. After indicating the overall experimental design, write down a detailed experimental method.

  • 3. Conduct the Experiments

    As researchers conduct the experiments, they must plan their processes thoroughly. Draw up a comprehensive schedule for each part of the experiment. Collect all the necessary materials to conduct the experiments and begin with experimenting using the experimentation protocol. If anything goes wrong or unplanned, ensure that there is a prevention plan to discontinue or troubleshoot the experiment. Repeat the entire process as necessary to obtain more accurate testing results.

  • 4. Conduct Data Analysis and Ready Document Drafting

    Start data analysis by transferring results into another program for comparison, creating visual charts and graphs to represent their relationships. Using the data from the experiments, perform the proper statistical methods to determine its significance with your current data sets. Generate the figures you have for drafting in applications like Excel. Guarantee that they are concise and clear. After gathering all the results and interpretations, begin writing the material and methods sections. Detail explanations from the outcomes and relevance to the field of study, including gaps analysis and possible literature in the future.

FAQs

What is scientific research based from?

For a research study to be scientific, the construction of the research finding must enable other researchers to process and obtain similar outcomes when repeating the experimental process. Remember that scientific knowledge must be accessible to the public and open to possible challenges.

What is the importance of scientific research?

The purpose of scientific research is to provide explanations to problems, observations, and phenomena through an objective process. It is valuable for developing and promoting different bodies of knowledge that can kickstart innovative ideas, allowing human beings to live in a more comfortable and healthier world. Above all, scientific research dispels falsified claims, opinions, and information due to inaccuracy and weak research materials.

What are the characteristics of scientific research?

Scientific research must possess the following characteristic for it to become effective. Scientific researches are objective, verifiable, ethically neutral, systematic, reliable, accurate, abstract, and predictable.

Scientific research is prominent not just in the field of sciences and mathematics. Researchers conduct research studies not only in academia but also in business organizations. Many scientists, analysts, and other professions utilize scientific research because it follows a systematic process to develop studies and literature concerning various subjects and topics. Make use of scientific research in the company to create case studies for predicting market trends and customer needs. Introduce scientific research to the company today by downloading the samples available in the article!