RESEARCH METHODOLOGY IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS

RESEARCH PROCESS
 Research is all about addressing an issue or asking and answering a question or solving a
problem, so…
 Identify an issue, question, or problem.
 Talk with people who want or need your study.

 Find out what's already known about it.

 Talk with experts and/or read their reviews and the original research on the topic.

 Plan, cost, and do your study accordingly.

 Write it up and submit it for assessment.
 Better still, do a good job on it and submit it for publication.
 Undergrad projects are sometimes good enough to publish.
 Your work will benefit more people if you publish it.
 Rule No. 1 in academia is publish or perish.

 This slide show is about different types of research you can do.
RESEARCH DESIGN

What
What will
typebe
of
thedata
sample
is
What is the
design?
required?
study about?
What periods
of time will
Why is the
the study
study being
include?
made?
What
Where will the techniques of
study be data
carried out? collection will
be used?

Where can the How will the

required data data be
be found? analysed?
 DISSECTING THE DIMENSIONS OF RESEARCH

 topic: psychological–sociological – information systems

 novelty: create new vs review published data
 technology: develop new vs use existing methods
 scope: study a single case vs a sample
 mode: observe vs intervene
 methodology: qualitative vs quantitative (info vs numbers)
 ideology: objective vs subjective (positivist vs interpretivist)
 utility: pure vs applied
 reassembling the dimensions
 BASIC RESEARCH APPLIED RESEARCH

•Designed to solve practical problems

• Driven by the scientist’s curiosity
or interest in a scientific question. of the real world, rather than to
acquire knowledge for knowledge’s
• Involves development and testing
theories and hypothesis that are sake.
intellectually challenging to the •Often involves the use of some
researcher but may or may not have
practical application at the present technology in the development of new
time or in the future. processes or systems.
• ...Frequently involve very abstract • Frequently linked to R&D
and specialized concepts
TYPES OF RESEARCH  Exploratory (Framework): What’s out
there?

QUESTIONS AND  Descriptive (Principles): What does it

look like? How does it work?
RESULTS  Evaluative (Empirical results): How
well does a method solve a problem?
 Explanatory (Causes): Why does
something happen the way it
happens?
 Predictive (Models): What would
happen if xxx ?
IS RESEARCH TOPIC
RESEARCH PROCESS

Review the literature

Review concepts
and theories Formulate Design
Define Research research(including
Problem hypotheses
sample design)
Review previous
research finding

Interpret Analyse data Collect data

and report (Test hypotheses) (Execution)
DEFINING RESEARCH PROBLEM
• A research problem, in general, refers to some difficulty which a researcher experiences in the
context of either a theoretical or practical situation and wants to obtain a solution for the same.

• Defining a research problem properly and clearly is a crucial part of a

research study and must in no case be accomplished hurriedly.
• The technique for the purpose involves the undertaking of the
following steps generally one after the other:
i. statement of the problem in a general way;
ii. understanding the nature of the problem;
iii. surveying the available literature
iv. developing the ideas through discussions; and
v. rephrasing the research problem into a working proposition.
EXAMPLES OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS

▪ Is television going to survive in digital eye or will it become obsolete

like digital camera?

▪ Do students think about the career options first

before choosing education or careers come second?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Why Literature Review??????
i. Assist in refining statement of the problem
ii. Strengthening the argument of selection of a research topic (Justification )
iii. It helps to get familiar with various types of methodology that might be used in
the study (Design)9

iii.
LITERATURE REVIEW

What are the whether the research

major issues and question already has
debate about the been answered by
research problem someone else?-

Questions that What is the

Are there any gaps can be chronology of the
in knowledge of the answered by a development of
subject? review of knowledge about
literature my research
problem?
What are the key
How can I bridge theories, concept and
ideas known about
the gap? iii. the subject?
What directions
/methodology are
indicated by the work of
other researchers?
 SOURCES OF LITERATURE

Books Vital statistics

• Text books • Census
• Monographs • Government Records
Database Literature
• Edited collections • Surveillance system
IEEEXplore Digital Library
• Surveys
(http:/ieeexplore.ieee.org)
Journal Articles International Science Direct (www.sciencedirect.com)
• Academic journals organization Palgrave Macmillan (www.palgrave-
• Conference Proceedings documents journals.com)
• e.g. (WHO,UNICEF) Wiley Online Library (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
Indexing and Inderscience Publishers
Media (www.inderscience.com)
Abstracting • Newspaper
journal search engines Emerald Insight (www.emeraldinsight.com)
• Magazine Springer Link (link.springer.com)
• Pubmed
• Google Scholar Taylor Francis (https://www.tandfonline.com/)
Past Dissertations Internet
LITERATURE REVIEW

• Finding too much? If you find so many citations that there is no end in
sight to the number of references you could use, its time to re-evaluate
your question. It's too broad/Nothing much to explore

• Finding too little? On the other hand, if you can't find much of anything,
ask yourself if you're looking in the right area.

• Take thorough notes. Be sure to write copious notes on everything as

you proceed through your research. It's very frustrating when you can't
find a reference found earlier that now you want to read in full.

• Look for references to papers from which you can identify the most
useful journals.

• Identify those authors who seem to be important in your subject area.

JOURNAL VS CONFERENCES

A journal article is a fully Original research results presented

developed presentation of your Clear conclusions are made and
work and its final findings supported by the data

Can present preliminary results or

A conference article can be highlight recent work
written while research is ongoing Gain informal feedback to use in your
research

Conference articles are typically shorter than journal articles,

with less detail and fewer references
HYPOTHESIS

• For a researcher hypothesis is a formal question that he intends to resolve.

• A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for an observable phenomenon which is \capable of being tested by scientific
methods .

• For example, consider a statement:

 “the drug A is equally efficacious as drug B.”

 This is a hypotheses capable of being objectively verified and tested.

 Characteristics of hypothesis: Hypothesis must possess the following characteristics:
❖Hypothesis should be clear and precise. If the hypothesis is not clear and precise, the inferences drawn on its basis
cannot be taken as reliable.
❖Hypothesis should be capable of being tested.

❖Hypothesis should be limited in scope and must be specific.

❖Hypothesis should be stated as far as possible in most simple terms so that the same is easily understandable by all
concerned.
❖Hypothesis should be amenable to testing within a reasonable time. One should not use even an excellent hypothesis, if
the same cannot be tested in reasonable time for one cannot spend a life-time collecting data to test it.
❖Thus hypothesis must actually explain what it claims to explain
 HYPOTHESIS SET UP

• We have just explained that a hypothesis is a statement that represents your predictions (or
deductions). It is sometimes written as H1, whereas its opposite – the null hypothesis – is written as H0
• When used, the null hypothesis (stating that there is no effect) is presumed true until statistical
evidence, in the form of a hypothesis test, indicates otherwise.
• The null hypothesis is thus a hypothesis set up to be rejected in order to support the alternate
(alternative) hypothesis, labelled H1 (your prediction).
• The great difficulty is that no amount of favourable observations (ten, a hundred or even a thousand
white swans) is sufficient to prove your hypothesis that all swans are white. On the other hand, the
observation of a single black swan would disprove your hypothesis.
• The idea is thus that some predictions cannot be verified, they can only be falsified.
RESEARCH MODEL
LITERATURE

 Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Method Approaches. SAGE. Dodig-

 Crnkovic, G. (2002). COMPUTER SCIENCE IN A THEORY OF SCIENCE DISCOURSE. Master Thesis in Computer
Science. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=664AECAC339E0C2AD06D8BAF52BCDD0E?
doi=10.1.1.12.5766&rep=rep1&type=pdf
 Hong, L. Y. (2006). RESEARCH METHODS IN ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE.
http://www.wabri.org.au/postgrads/documents/RM%20sci_eng_notes/Eng_Leung.pdf
 Kothari, C.R. (2004) Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. 2nd Edition, New Age International
Publishers, New Delhi.
 Kumar, R. (2005). Research methodology – A step-by-step guide for beginners. SAGE.

 Liles, D.; Johnson, M.; Meade, L.; Underdown, D. (1995). Enterprise Engineering: A discipline?, Society for Enterprise
Engineering (SEE) Conference, Orlando,
THANK YOU!!