RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Scientific Research Process

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 Socratic Method vs. Scientific
Method
• Socratic Methods (Conceptual):
• Wonder: Pose a question
• Hypothesis: Formulate a conceptual answer based on reasoning
• Elenchus: Critically challenge your answer (Reformulate hypothesis if necessary)
• Accept: Accept hypothesis (initial/refined)
• Act accordingly.
• Scientific Methods (Empirical):
• Wonder: Pose a question
• Hypothesis: Formulate an empirically testable answer based on reasoning
• Test: Conduct experiments (Reformulate hypothesis if necessary)
• Accept: Accept hypothesis (initial/refined)
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• Act accordingly.
Scientific Research Process

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 Scientific method

The Scientific Method is a logical and

systematic approach or process to
problem solving. 

It involves a series of steps that are used

to investigate a research question.

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 Scientific methods - Steps
• 1) Define the research question
• 2) Research the problem
• 3) State the hypothesis
• 4) Experiment to test Hypothesis
• 5) Collect and Record Data
• 6) Analyze Data
• 7) Draw Conclusions
• 8) Determine Limitations
If needed, Do more
• 9) Communicate/Report Results investigation
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 First What does the scientist want
Question to learn more about?

Then

Review Research Gathering of information

Next

An “Educated” guess of an
Hypothesis answer to the question

Then
Written and carefully
Procedure/ followed step-by-step
Scientific Method Experiment experiment designed to test
the hypothesis
An Overview Next

Information collected during

Data the experiment

And

Written description of what

Analysis was noticed during the
experiment

Finally

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Was the hypothesis correct
Conclusion or incorrect?
 Steps involved in an Empirical
Study
• Step1: Identify research problem
• Select a broad area of interest
• (e.g. Telecommunications, Embedded Systems, Artificial Intelligence,
machine learning, Information Security)
• Narrow it down to a specific topic
• (e.g. SDR, Antenna Design, Disease Diagnosis, handwriting analysis)
• Refine research question/objectives/scope
• (e.g. Resource Allocation, MM Wave MIMO Antenna Design for 5G
Networks, Parkinson’s Disease Diagnosis using handwriting analysis)

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 Steps involved in an Empirical
Study
• Step2: Review existing answers
• Read literature
• Organize literature
• Compile literature
• Step3: Formulate a hypothesis
• Suggest your answer
• Propose solution(s)
• Design methodology
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 Steps involved in an Empirical
Study
• Step4: Test hypothesis
• Design research plan
• Perform experiments
• Step5: Collect and analyze results
• Interpret results
• Prove/disprove hypothesis
• Step6: Conclusion and presentation
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What do you do in a Thesis?

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 Thesis …
Chapter 1 - Introduction

FORMULATION PHASE
Chapter 2 - Literature review
Cyclic and dynamic iteration

Chapter 3 – Methodology DESIGN AND EXCUTION PHASE

Chapter 4 - Experiments

ANALYTICAL PHASE
Chapter 5- Result Analysis

Chapter 6- Conclusion

References
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Appendix
 What do before you start a
thesis?

• Pick up a problem
• Choose an advisor
• Prepare a research proposal
• Defend your proposal

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 Step 1 – Problem/Question
• « A Problem Well Defined is a Problem Half Solved »
• Define the research question.
• A question occurs to or is posed to the researcher for which that researcher has no
answer.
• This doesn’t mean that someone else doesn’t already have an answer.
• The question needs to be converted to an appropriate problem statement like that
documented in a research proposal.
• Research question can also arise from observation
• Example:
• Problem: Online Fake News Detection
• Research Question: Can fake news be detected?
• Literature: How fake news can be detected? (answer 1, answer 2, answer 3)
• Hypothesis (Your Answer): The heading and body content of fake news does not
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correlate.
 Example

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcss.2014.02.005
*Seneviratne, Wathmanel. (2015). Modeling survey research designs: a review of basic design
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phases for effective reasoning for novice LIS researchers.
 The importance of your decision

Of all the decisions you'll make as an emerging

scientist, none is more important than identifying
the right research area, and in particular, the right
research topic.

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 Factors to consider
• Topic should be Interesting to
• You
• Otherwise it will be difficult to stay focused, motivated, and
convincing other people that your research is interesting
• By the time you are done, you may really be tired of the
topic
• Your advisor
• The research community
• Can interest be sustained by it? 17
 Factors to Consider

• Feasibility of the project

• How much time do you have available
• Do you really want to do a longitudinal study that will take 10
years to complete for an MS / PhD thesis?
• How difficult is it. Are data available?
• How much will it cost?

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 Feasibility Checklist
1. Is the problem solvable?
• The problem should be solvable in a reasonable period of time.
2. Is it worth doing?
• The research community should be interested in your results.
3. Will it lead to other research problems?
• The topic should not lead you to a dead end. There should be some
interesting future work.
4. Is it manageable in size?
• Your supervisor will help you determine how to make your dissertation
original and publishable, yet also manageable
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 Feasibility Checklist
5. What is the potential for making an original contribution to the
literature in the field?
• Potential Publications
6. If the problem is solved, will the results be reviewed well by scholars
in your field?
• Not only you should think that you topic is a good idea.
7. Are you, or will you become, competent to solve it?
• To solve the problem you'll also need to develop basic knowledge and technical
understanding, relevant skills and experimental expertise
8. Will the necessary research prepare you in an area of demand or
promise for the future? 20

• Not only look on your current goal, look a step further

 Stating the problem – Famous first
words
• The purpose of this study is to examine and better understand the
effects of . . .
• The purpose of this study is twofold. First, this study will assess the . . .
• This research concentrates on . . .
• The research problem for this study is to describe the . . .
• The specific objectives of the present study are . . .
• This study examines the relationships among . . .
• There are several reasons for inquiring into . . .
• This thesis explores the idea . . .
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 Characteristics of a good
research question
• Can be answered by collecting and analyzing data
• Assumes the possibility of different outcomes
• Is narrow
• Is clear
• Is a single question
• Is built on sound assumptions

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 Where to get ideas from?
• You can gather topic ideas from a variety of sources

• (Potential) Supervisor’s Suggestions

• Your supervisor may have many suggestions based on their own
research in an area for your research project
• Can provide detailed insight into the nature of any problem they
suggest
• Your supervisor should always be tried first
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 Where to get ideas from?
• Readings
• Preliminary reading in general encyclopedias, newspapers, or magazines
• Books & Bibliographies in the back of books on your topics
• Journals/Conferences – Electronic databases

• Internet
• Use this source with caution
• You must evaluate Internet sources for credibility
• www.kaggle.com/ kaggle competition
• UCI ML Repository 24
 Where to get ideas from?

• What others are doing?

• What areas other research groups are working on?
• Visit their web pages
• Go through the list of MS/PhD theses
• Replicate Research with modifications
• Changing some of the settings of previous research often leads to
new and sometime unexpected results
• Apply an existing technique to a new domain
• This might be using a modified algorithm to manipulate data in
another field in order to achieve a new result
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 Where to get ideas from?

• What others are doing?

• Address Contradiction and Ambiguity
• Find results that contradict each other
• Contradictions may be reported by two or more researchers exploring
an existing problem
• Finding ways of explaining the contradictions requires research

• Challenge Findings
• If you believe some one else’s result may be incorrect, you may attempt
to disprove their results formally as your research effort.
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 Where to get ideas from?

• What others are doing?

• Some continuation/increment of some work.
• For some people – A bad idea: if they did not do it, it
is either boring, useless, very difficult, not
manageable
• Or all of the above!

• Something very new

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Assignment # 1

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 Assignment
• Step 1: Choose a broader research area (1 area)
• e.g. Telecommunications, Embedded Systems, Information Security, Artificial
Intelligence, Computer Vision, Computer Networks,
• Step 2: Shortlist 3 reputed research groups on your chosen research area
(3 groups)
• Step 3: Scan through the relevant projects/publications listed on the
groups and select 3 possible research problems (one from each group) (3
problems)
• Step 4: Identify 1 senior researcher from each group working on the
selected problems (3 researchers)
• Step 5: Select 3 relevant publications on each problem (9 papers)
• Step 6: Prepare a Latex document summarizing your findings 29
 Research @ Bahria
• https://bahria.edu.pk/oric/

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 You are not expected to run off and hide in some lab,
conduct research, get a result, write a thesis and
defend it on your own.

You need to work with……

An
Advisor
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How do you choose
an advisor?

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 How do you choose an advisor?

• Talk to potential advisors

• You will get to know what they're working on
• Whether they're looking for new students or not
• Talk to current and former students
• Very important set
• Several different opinions about the advisor's strengths and weaknesses
• Each student will have a different read on the advisor depending on how
well they work together, so it's important that you speak to multiple
students
• Read their publications
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• What they're working on and what stage their research has reached
What do you look for
in an advisor?

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What do you look for in an advisor?

• Accessibility
• How accessible are they likely to be?
• Often you will need reassurance, guidance, signatures, direction, keys,
and more signatures

• Compatibility
• Do you have similar working styles?
• What do they expect from their students?
• Do they think the work week is 40 hours or 80 hours long?
• What kind of expectations of progress do they have?
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• How do they react if those expectations aren't met?
 What do you look for in an
advisor?

• Durability
• Will they be here for all of your stay?
• Do they often go on leaves of absence?

• History – Track Record

• Have they graduated other students?
• Are their current students successful?
• Are they established in their area, or are they a "rising star"?
• Have they lost a lot of students through advisor changes or departures?
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 What do you look for in an
advisor?
• Research
• Are you interested in their research?
• Normally advertise what research areas they are interested
in
• See their publications.

• Do they have a large group working on one problem,ror ea rch

es
individuals working on unrelated problems? l e in ure
i c ab c u lt
l s
App ps/lab
u
gro 37
 What do you look for in an
advisor?
• Do not be influenced by the performance of a professor in
non-supervisory tasks
• Teaches well or badly
• Late or early for meetings
• Dresses well or badly

• Actually tells you very little about how good a fit they
might be with you.
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 Responsibilities of a supervisor
• Help you select/refine your research topic
• Guide you in writing the thesis proposal
• Review your thesis proposal and recommend its approval
• Meet regularly with you
• Review your progress on the thesis and guide your research effort
• Review your research papers/presentations/reports and give you
appropriate feedback
• Guide you in the preparation of your thesis arguments in document
form
• Evaluate the readiness of your thesis for defense
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• Sit on your examination committee
An advisor will only give you the directions
to follow – you have to walk by yourself

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 Ma
yb
e…
..
Pros and cons – Junior advisor
o Easier to access o Inexperienced
o Enthusiastic o Little track record
o Cutting edge research o May be risky research area
o Harder to develop
o Hands-on mentoring
independence
o Fewer responsibilities o Fewer networking contacts

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 Ma
yb
e…
..
Pros and cons – Senior advisor
o Experienced o Not very accessible
o Knowledgeable o Generation Gap
o Significant track record o May be dated
o Established research o May delegate supervision
o Trained more students o May not give due attention
o Can foster independence
o Many responsibilities/ travel/
meetings etc.
o Many contacts
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 l l l ast ll
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o Yo u na l,
i
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a y i
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and
Once an advisor, always an
advisor.

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Introduction to Overleaf
Assessment 1

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Introduction to Overleaf

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The material in these slides is based on the following resources

References
• Choosing a Supervisor, Alexander Ferworn, Department of Computer Science, Ryerson
University
• Methodologies for research in computer science, Lionel Brunie, LIRIS –INSA, Lyon,
France
• Introduction to research process, Dr Muhammad Hanif, Workshop on research
methodologies, MCS-NUST
• Scientific Research in Computer Science and Computer Engineering, Doctoral Seminar,
Nayda G. Santiago
• Choosing a computer science research problem, Alexander Ferworn, Department of Computer
Science, Ryerson University
• Choosing a research topic, Martin Pinzger, Gerald Reif, DSG, TU Vienna
• CRVC, University of Central Florida
• Lecture Notes of Dr. Momina Moetesum, Department of Computer Sciences, Bahria University,
Islamabad.

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