Unit 7 Research

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 496.

1 Introduction

1.1 Read the text title and hypothesize what the text is about. Write down your hypothesis.

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1.2 What do you know concerning this issue? List your ideas in the table left column “I know”.

1.3 If you know answers to these questions write them down in the space given after each question.

1.4 Circle in the list the words and expressions you know. Write down their translation in the table and calculate the percentage of your lexical competence.

1.5

Research can be defined as the search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation to establish novel facts using a scientific method. Scientific research relies on the application of the scientific method, arising intellectual curiosity. This research provides scientific information and theories for the explanation of the nature and the properties of the world around us. It makes practical applications possible.

The primary purpose of applied research (as opposed to basic research) is discovering, interpreting, and development of methods and systems for advancement of human knowledge on a wide variety of scientific matters concerning our world and the universe. Applied research solves practical problems; its goal is to improve the human life. For example, applied researchers may investigate ways to:

· improve agricultural crop production

· cure a specific disease

· improve the energy efficiency of homes, offices, or modes of transportation

Basic research advances fundamental knowledge about the human world. It focuses on refuting or supporting theories that explain how this world operates, what makes things happen, why social relations are a certain way, and why society changes. Basic research is the source of most new scientific ideas and ways of thinking about the world. It can be exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory; however, explanatory research is the most common. Basic research generates new ideas, principles and theories, which may not be immediately utilized. Basic research rarely helps practitioners directly with their everyday concerns. Nevertheless, it stimulates new ways of thinking and is the potential to revolutionize and dramatically improve the ways practitioners deal with a problem. Basic research is mainly carried out by universities.

Generally, research is understood to follow a certain structural process. Though step order may vary, the following steps are usually part of most formal research, both basic and applied:

· Observations and formation of the topic

· Hypothesis

· Conceptual definitions

· Operational definitions

· Gathering of data

· Analysis of data

· Test, revising of hypothesis

· Conclusion

A common misunderstanding is that by this method a hypothesis could be proven or tested. Generally a hypothesis is used to make predictions that can be tested by observing the outcome of an experiment. If the outcome is inconsistent with the hypothesis, then the hypothesis is rejected. However, if the outcome is consistent with the hypothesis, the experiment is said to support the hypothesis. This careful language is used because researchers recognize that alternative hypotheses may also be consistent with the observations. In this sense, a hypothesis can never be proven, but rather only supported by a series of scientific testing and, eventually, becoming widely thought of as true. As the accuracy of observation improves in course of time, the hypothesis may no longer provide an accurate prediction. In this case a new hypothesis will arise to challenge the old one.