Conceptualizing Your Research: Developing Research Questions and Study Design

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Conceptualizing Your Research Developing
Research Questions and Study Design
Research Methods
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Look for a bigger picture

• Fundamental questions are guidepost, they
  stimulate people. .. One of the most creative
  qualities a research scientist can have is the
  ability to ask the right questions
• David Gross
• 2004 Physics Nobel Laureate

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Outline

• How to select research projects
• An example of a Social Science project
• An example of a chemistry/biochemistry project

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What Dont we know? Science, 2005, 309, 75-102
What are the limits of conventional computing?
Why do humans have so few genes?
How are Memories Stored and Retrieved?

Single-Molecule Magnets forStoring and
Processing Digital Information- is it a Dream or
Reality?
Are Political and Economic Freedom Closely Tied?
What Can Replace Cheap Oil?
Are there Smaller Building Blocks than Quarks?
Science, 2005
What are Human Races, and how did they Develop?
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The Research Topic

• It must be research
• It must not have been done before
• It must be significant
• There must be higher than probability zero that
  you can do it
• It must lend itself to a viable research plan
• You must have the facilities to accomplish the
  research
• It should fit into your strategic plan

Source Warren R. DeVries, Division Director,
Directorate for Engineering, National Science
Foundation
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Discipline specific culture

• Natural, Health, Life Sciences
• Engineering fields
• Social Sciences
• Humanities
• Education
• Business
• Other disciplines

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Groundwork

• Must be based on new ideas, new directions in the
  field
• Check it out, do a thorough background literature
  search
• Find out who are the key researchers in the field
• Are there more important issues to be resolved?
• Can you compete with established researchers in
  the field?
• Is the field overpopulated?
• Can you create a new subfield?

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Selection of Research Project

• Is this a hypotheses based proposal?
• If so, clearly formulate the hypotheses and
  explain how they can be tested
• Design experiments to test your hypotheses or how
  exactly you will solve the problems formulated in
  the objectives
• Make it a highly focused project
• Link your project to societal benefits
• Link your project to educational goals

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Intellectual Merit

• The Intellectual Merit is the contribution that
  your research makes to the knowledge base
• Questions
• What is already known?
• What is new?
• What will your research add?
• What will this do to enhance or enable research
  in your or other fields?

Source Warren R. DeVries, Division Director,
Directorate for Engineering, National Science
Foundation
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Layout your Thoughts

• Provide sound background/introduction
• Clearly document up-to-date information
• Delineate what has not been done
• What problems remain unresolved?
• What is the intellectual merit?
• Formulate the objectives in unambiguous language
• Layout flaw-less experimental design
• Make sure statistical tools are available or can
  be developed to analyze data
• Be aware of the drawbacks

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Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap A
Social-Psychological Intervention

• G.L. Cohen, J. Garcia, N. Apfel, A. Master,
  Science 2006, 313, 1307-1310
• Effect of negative stereotyping aimed at ones
  group could undermine academic performance in
  minority students by elevating their level of
  psychological threat.

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Experimental Design

• Tested whether such psychological threat
• could be lessened by having students reaffirm
  their personal adequacy and self-integrity
• Double blinded experiments
• Selection of Student populations
• Selection of Teachers
• Choice of Controls
• Intervention mechanism
• Replications

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Data Analysis, Imperatives Conclusion

• Sound Statistical analysis was required
• The intervention, a brief-in class writing
  assignment, significantly improved the grades of
  the African American students and reduced the
  racial achievement gap by 40
• The racial achievement gap could be ameliorated
  by the use of timely and targeted
  social-psychological intervention.

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How do chromium compounds cause cancer?

• Over 60 workers who are exposed to chromium dust
  develop bronchial and lung cancer.
• What are the biological targets
• Do cellular milieu create the deadly carcinogens?
• Why do the detoxification mechanisms shut-off?
• What particular chromium species?
• Are there model compounds we can test?
• Design experiments that mimic in-vivo conditions?