Creator of Sleeky.net and Head Researcher @ Sleeky Research Group - Joseph Ikhalia @ the largest Cyber-Security Consortium in Europe (#InfoSec 2014)
Goals of Research Methodology
1.Plan and Undertake Research Projects
2.Deal with research challenges in a systematic manner that follows certain protocols or standards which are acceptable in an academic scholarly community
3. Understand and interpret scholarship and research reports when you read them, identifying their major elements and underlying methodologies
A systematic and organised form of continuous attention applied to a field of knowledge, undertaken to establish facts, relations, principles and theories
Continuous attention – prefix “re” implies returning to study
Systematic and Organised – the scientific method
Establishing facts – description
Establishing relations – explanation and correlation
Establishing principles and theories – exploration and discovery
Types of Research
Descriptive Research:
Giving a systematic and organised description of what exists. Facts organised in a classified form to give a clear picture of a subject.
Explanatory:
This deals with understanding the cause and effect of related factors. Relations that are not very clear, which the researcher wants to explain.
Co-relational research:
In this case the distinct factors are clear and the researcher wants to understand how one factor affects the other.
Exploratory research (Establishment of theories):
It begins with situations that the researcher does not know enough about.
It produces broad generalities
Characteristics of Research
Controlled – set up controls or quantify effects
Rigorous – follow relevant procedures
Systematic – follow logical sequences, necessary and sufficient conditions
Valid and Verifiable – universally repeatable
Empirical – conclusions based on sensory inputs
Critical – all procedures can be questioned
Functions of Research
Pure: seeking knowledge without thought of application – e.g. science
Applied: seeking knowledge which can be applied to achieve a certain goal e.g. Technology
Practical: seeking knowledge of dynamic action in process of application e.g. Engineering.
Intuitive: belief, faith, hunches, feelings – building hypothesis
Authoritative: based on established sources or authorities – academic literature
Logical: exercise of induction and deduction reasoning from findings to conclusions
Empirical: based on objective facts established through sensory observations –procedures leading to findings.
Research Paradigms
Positivism: Reality is restricted to observable data; it can be quantitative or qualitative.
Post-positivism: Combining empirical observations with logical reasoning – science as probabilistic (qualitative, ethnographic, ecological, naturalistic approaches)
Post-positivism:
Subjectivist: world as subjective construction
Critical Realist: world as objective reality but available only through progressive (increasingly plausible) interpretations
0 comments:
Post a Comment