Faculty of Engineering and Technology

Research Methodology
Civil Eng & Information Technology (IT) -Semester 7
2024-2025

Lecture 1
Prepared by
Dr Abeer Abdalla Zakaria
 What is Research

• Research in simple terms refers to the search for

knowledge.
• It is a scientific and systematic search for
information on a particular topic or issue.
• It is also known as the art of scientific
investigation to establish facts.
• Research is a systematic inquiry to describe,
explain, predict, and control the observed
phenomenon.
• To research is to purposely and
methodically search for new
knowledge and practical solutions in
the form of answers to questions
formulated beforehand.
• Is a systematic attempt to provide
answers to questions.

• Usually Research consists of:

 Asking a question that nobody has asked
before;
 Doing the necessary work to find the
answer;
 Communicating the knowledge you have
acquired to a larger audience.
 Research and Development

• Let's begin with a question that has an obvious answer.

• What's the difference between a wall phone (circa 1907) and an
iPhone 5?
• Their functions, size, and their composition are very different.
• email, digital photos, internet, WiFi, GPS, texting, and mobile
conversations.

The question is:

• How did we get from the wall phone to the iPhone 5?
• Research and Development (R&D).
• Consequently, the research process can be defined as the step-by-
step actions taken in conducting a particular research.
Research and development

• Refers to a wide range of business, governmental, and academic activities designed to gather new
knowledge.
• The new knowledge leads to new products or processes, and sometimes it doesn’t.
• The purpose of R&D is to expand the frontiers of human understanding and to improve our
society as a whole.
• To supply the innovations that took us from the wall phone to the iPhone 5 R&D activities have to
take place.
• R & D can be subdivided into three categories: Pure research, Applied research, and Development
activities.
Development activities
• Refer to a wide range of business, governmental, and academic activities designed to use new or
old knowledge to produce new products or processes, so that people are able to live a longer and
healthier life.
• More knowledgeable, are more able to access the resources needed for a decent standard of
living, and are more able to participate in the life of the community.
Why do research?...
 Validate intuition

 Improve methods

 Demands of the Job

 For publication/patent
Research Methods Vs Methodology:

• Research methodology is a term that means the science of how research is done scientifically.
• It is a way in which research problems are solved systematically and logically.
• Help us understand the process not just the product of research, and analyze methods in addition
to the information obtained by them.
• Research methods include all those techniques/methods that are adopted for conducting
research.
• On the other hand, research methodology it is the science of studying how research is conducted
scientifically.
• The researcher acquaints himself/herself with the various steps generally adopted to study a
research problem, along with the underlying logic behind them.
• Hence, it is important for the researcher to know the research techniques/ methods and the
scientific approach called methodology.
• The methodology may include publication research, interviews, surveys, and other research
techniques, and could include both present and historical information.
 The types of research based on different purposes:
1. Basic Research:
• This research aims to understand and explain, i.e. the research is interested in formulating and testing
theoretical constructs and propositions that ideally generalize across time and space.
• This type of research takes the form of a theory that explains the phenomenon under investigation to give
its contribution to knowledge.
• Is directed at understanding what something is or how it works. There is no immediate expectation of a
short-term payoff. Basically, pure research is an attempt to satisfy our curiosity about something unknown.
• This research is more descriptive in nature exploring what, why, and how questions.
• including comparative and analysis
2. Applied Research:
• It is a form of systematic inquiry involving the practical application of science. It is more prescriptive in
nature, focusing on how questions.
• The purpose of this research is to help people understand the nature of human problems so that human
beings can more effectively control their environment. In other words, this type of research pursues
potential solutions to human and societal problems.
• Is any fact-gathering project that is conducted with a focus on acquiring and applying knowledge that will
address a specific problem or meet a specific need within the scope of an entity.
3. Evaluation Research (summative and formative):
• Evaluation research studies the processes and outcomes aimed at attempted solutions.
• The purpose of formative research is to improve human intervention within specific conditions, such as
activities, time, and groups of people; the purpose of summative evaluation is to judge the effectiveness of a
program, policy, or product.
4. Action Research:
• Action research aims at solving specific problems within a program, organization, or community.
• Described that design and data collection in action research tend to be more informal, and the people in the
situation are directly involved in gathering information and studying themselves.
5. Exploratory:
• Exploratory research is a preliminary study of an unfamiliar problem about which the researcher has little or
no knowledge.
• To Generate new ideas, and to increase the researcher’s familiarity with the problem
• To Make a precise formulation of the problem
• To gather information for clarifying concepts
• To determine whether it is feasible to attempt the study.
5. Survey research
• Is one of the most important areas of measurement in applied social research. The broad area of
survey research encompasses any measurement procedures that involve asking questions of
respondents.
• A "survey" can be anything from a short paper-and-pencil feedback form to an intensive one-on-
one in-depth interview.
• A survey can cover a very large population and definite geographical area, a city, district, or state.
The following are the types of knowledge that research contributes to education:
1. Description:
• Results of research can describe natural or social phenomenon, such as their form, structure, activity, change over time,
relationship to other phenomena, etc.
• The descriptive function of research relies on instrumentation for measurement and observations. The descriptive
research results in our understanding of what happened. It sometimes produces statistical information about aspects of
education.
For example, if I carry out research to describe the throughput obtained in IEEE802.11b WLAN System, one of the major
contributions to knowledge will be descriptive data which describes the throughput based on certain agreed or defined
parameters.
2. Prediction:
• Prediction research is intended to predict a phenomenon that will occur at time Y from information at an earlier time X.
It could also be to predict parameter A (dependent variable) based on parameter B (independent variable).
• This usually requires that models or equations be developed from collected data which can predict the dependent
variable from the independent variable.
For example, In educational research, researchers have been engaged in: Acquiring knowledge about factors that predict
students' success in schools and in the world of work to Identify students who are likely to be unsuccessful so that prevention
programs can be instituted.
 3. Improvement:
• This type of research is mainly concerned with the effectiveness of intervention. The research approach includes
experimental design and evaluation research. It is aimed at improving an already established research or fact.

4. Explanation:
• This type of research subsumes the other three: if the researchers are able to explain an educational phenomenon,
it means that they can describe, can predict its consequences, and know how to intervene to change those
consequences.

5. Quantitative vs. Qualitative:

• Quantitative research is based on the measurement of quantity or amount.
• Qualitative research, on the other hand, is concerned with qualitative phenomena, i.e., phenomena relating
to or involving quality or kind.

6. Empirical research:
• It is data-based research, coming up with conclusions that can be verified by observation or experiment. We
can also call it an experimental type of research.
7. Survey research:
• Is one of the most important areas of measurement in applied social research. The broad area of survey research
encompasses any measurement procedures that involve asking questions of respondents.
• A "survey" can be anything form a short paper-and-pencil feedback form to an intensive one-on-one in-depth
interview.
• It is always conducted in a natural setting.
• It seeks responses directly from the respondents.
• It can cover a very large population
• A survey may involve an extensive study or an intensive study.
• A survey covers a definite geographical area, a city, district, state.

A case study
• Is a research methodology common in social science.
• It is based on an in-depth investigation of a single individual, group, or event to explore causation in order to
find underlying principles.
• To examine a limited number of variables.
• It provides a systematic way of looking at events, collecting data, analyzing information, and reporting the
results.
Some Examples of applied research are:

 Investigate why some Salaam University students resume late and determine which factors most
prominently affect student resumption to develop new management policies that will reduce late
resumption on campus.
 Investigating which treatment approach is the most effective for reducing Malaria disease.
 Researching which strategies work best to motivate workers.
 Studying different keyboard designs to determine the most efficient and ergonomic.
 Analyzing what prompts will inspire people to volunteer their time to charities.
 Exploratory research
 Historical research is that which utilizes historical sources like documents, remains, etc. to study
events or ideas of the past, including the philosophy of persons and groups at any remote point of
time.