Experiment!: Planning, Implementing and Interpreting

10.9 Summary

• The novelty requirement can be fulfilled by showing originality with respect to: data; methods and techniques; research questions; research areas; or analysis and synthesis.
• Why-analysis can be used to explore the boundaries of knowledge and identify promising research problems. It helps us to penetrate layers of descriptive knowledge to a level where our understanding of a problem is finally challenged.
• Since research problems often are complex it is important to break them down into subproblems that can be handled, as well as setting a realistic scope for the research.
• Ishikawa diagrams allow us to summarize important relationships between an effect and its potential causes in a process or phenomenon.
• Cause-and-effect tables can be used to explore how we expect a potential cause to be coupled to its effect. They are thereby useful for developing ideas for experiments.
• Process diagrams are tools for visualizing steps in a process. They are useful in the formulation of research questions and the development of ideas for experiments.
• Thought experiments are used for evaluating hypotheses by exploring their logical implications. If an idea leads to paradoxes it is not generally applicable and may be discarded.
• The tools above are useful for generating, evaluating and ranking research hypotheses. When a clear research question has been stated the planning phase continues by identifying appropriate responses and useful factors, designing an experiment, determining factor ...