KINS 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Conceptual Framework, Empirical Research
Document Summary
Week 1 may 4th, 2020 (introduction & research methods) No study is perfect and does not tell the whole story. There are specific context and limits to generalization. Raises more questions than what is answered. Hypotheses: best guess to an answer based on existing knowledge. Scientific method: organized set of steps to test hypotheses to develop the body of knowledge in the scientific literature. Body of knowledge: sum of published studies on a topic. Steps of scientific method: define the question, determine what we know from published studies, construct hypothesis & test in experiment, analyze data and draw a conclusion, communicate results, e. g. publish peer-reviewed articles. Intuition: ability to know something without any reason, not empirical, guess or gut feeling, can be misleading or wrong. Tradition: we have always done it this way , hit or miss. Trial & error: mini experiments , often resorted to when there is a lack of scientific investigation.
