The Research Process. Parts of The Research Process Part 1 The research environment Part 2 The process of conducting research Part 3 Professional and.

The Research Process

Parts of The Research Process

Part 1 The research environment Part 2 The process of conducting

research Part 3 Professional and personal research

proposal writing Part 4 Research project management –

theory and practice

Part 1 The Research Environment

What is research?From Dictionary.com

1. Scholarly or scientific investigation or inquiry. See Synonyms at inquiry.

2. Close, careful study.

Personal research– For your own benefit

Scholarly research– For the benefit of society

Why do research?

What do you think???

Thesis (hypothesis)

Definition for Dictionary.com – 4 definitions1. A proposition that is maintained by argument.

2. A dissertation advancing an original point of view as a result of research, especially as a requirement for an academic degree.

3. A hypothetical proposition, especially one put forth without proof.

4. The first stage of the Hegelian dialectic process.

Research Objective

Provide evidence to prove or disprove a thesis (hypothesis)

Thesis – drivers will reduce their speed if we post their speed on a variable message sign

Provide evidence to allow the development of a thesis (hypothesis)

Thesis – we have observed the intersection crash rates at intersections with and without all-red clearance intervals and crash rates remain the same – all red clearance intervals do not impact crash rates.

Importance of Objectivity

Disproving your hypothesis can be just as important as disproving your hypothesis– Some motorists speed up

to see how fast they can go when their speed is posted to a VMS.

Research Ethics

Need for openness– Sharing results is essential

Mechanisms to promote openness– Protection of intellectual property

Patent protection Copyrights Speedy publication

– Job promotion and notoriety

Mechanisms For Openness

Promote publication of results Impose a moral duty to publish research

findings Creates an environment for sharing findings Establishes importance to taking ownership

(credit) and accountability for findings

Honesty in Reporting Results

Report results even though it may conflict with your hypothesis

Data should be thought to be valid unless determined otherwise

All research work should be reviewed by peers Wise sponsors will have the results of one researcher

reviewed by a peer researcher rather than using the results blindly

Deceptive practices can result in the loss of a job and loss of reputation

Errors, Negligence, and Deception

Errors – honest mistakes– Acknowledge at the earliest convenience

Negligence – Omission or commission of scientific process

– Did not check for normality of error terms

Deception– Fabrication– Falsification– Plagierism

What is an outlier?

Residual plot

VMT

California-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000

Florida

Texas

New York

CaliforniaFat

al C

rash

Rat

e S

tand

ard

Dev

iati

on

VMT

Are Florida or Texas outliers?

Outlier

If kept these data have tremendous impact on you statistical results

If they are thrown out of the analysis they should represent anomalous data

Rule of Thumb - Should be a minimum of two or three standard deviations away from the mean

Regression, inspect results

2 4 6 8 10 12 14

X-Axis

0

5

10

15

Y-A

xis

R-square = 0.748 # pts = 13 y = 0.578 + 0.352x

Title

Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-valueIntercept 0.431690739 0.467807938 0.922795 0.377842

4 0.374758631 0.075277665 4.978351 0.000555

Inspection

One data point was added

0 5 10 15

X-Axis

0

5

10

15

Y-A

xis

R-square = 0.479 # pts = 14 y = 10.4 + -1.24x

Title

Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-valueIntercept 11.67086557 2.145346542 5.440084 0.000204

4 -1.404568306 0.358929371 -3.91322 0.002421

Peer review process

Assumption – The peer community is the most capable of reviewing a peers work

For a peer review process to work it has be blind – Double blind is preferable

Where is Peer Review Process Applied

Most journal articles Proposals to academic research program

– NSF

US DOT programs are reviewed by professional peers Research findings and reports are always reviewed by

professional peers and sometimes academic peers Dossier for academic promotion and tenure

Publication Reviews Types

Highly academic journals conduct double blind reviews Journals like the Transportation Research Record do a

single blind review by professional peers Academic and scholarly conferences with conference

proceedings review the full paper like the TRB annual meeting

Professional conferences like ITS America’s annual meeting and ITE’s annual meeting only review abstracts

Credit for Work and Accountability

Forms of credit– Authorship– Acknowledgement– Citation

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThis research was sponsored by a Transportation Statistics Research Grant from the Bureau of

Transportation Statistics, United States Department of Transportation and was performed at the Connecticut Transportation Institute in the University of Connecticut. The authors thank Yusuf Mohamedshah of Federal Highway Administration for providing us with the HSIS dataset and assisting us in interpreting it. The authors also gratefully acknowledge contribution to this project made by Dr. Don Tepas and Jianhe Du. Thanks also go to Dr. Diane Lambert of Bell Labs for providing ZIP model computer codes.

Taken From: Xiao Qin , John N. Ivan, and Junfeng Liu, “A Hierarchical Bayesian Estimation of Non-linear Safety Performance Functions for Two-Lane Highways Using MCMC Modeling” TRB annual conference, 2003

Credit for Work and Accountability, continued

Authorship– The senior author should have provided the most

intellectual contribution and direction to the paper or report

To be named an author, the individual should– Provide an intellectual contribution or – Contribute direct and substantively to the work

Credit For Work

Citations– Always cite some one else’s work that has provided

supporting data for your research– If the prior researchers contribution was significant,

reference them by name in your article or report– Provide page numbers for quotes or citing of facts

Conflicts of Interest

A conflict between a person's private interests and public obligations

Actual conflict of interest A perceived conflict of interest Positive conflict of interest

A conflict of commitment Disclosure of conflict to sponsor The engineering and business worlds are rife

with conflicts of interest

Part 2 – The Process of Conducting Research

Usually we are presented with a topic– Improve safety on rural expressways using low cost and conventional

approaches Some time we are given general areas of interest and asked

to come up with innovative research ideas– Research topics must target innovative strategies for

exploiting state-of-the-art information and information/communication technologies in surface transportation systems to meet the challenges and constraints associated with mobility.

In frequently a researcher will get the opportunity to do exactly what they would personally like to do – study something for its intrinsic value.

Idealized research process steps

Identify a problem Conduct a review of the practice and the

literature Define the problem – problems statement Define a methodology to address the problem Execute you research plan Report findings Make recommendation

Getting started

Identify a topic area of interest (to you, society, or sponsors)

Define the problem. – Sometimes the objective and purpose are clear– Most of the time considerable background

information must understood to frame the problem Albert Einstein went so far as to say that "the formulation of a

problem is often more essential than its solution"!

Once you have an idea

Go through a vetting process– Talk to your colleagues about your idea– Consult experts– Consult practitioners

Vetting can help to toss out ill-conceived topics and refine good ones

Knowledge is cumulative

Next the researcher must review what has been done before– Perform a literature review– Identify gaps in the literature

Further define the problem– Provides a theoretical rationale of the problem

Define the problem

What are the specific issues that need to be addressed Define how your work contributes (rather than

duplicates) what is known Define how your work will relate to existing theory

regarding the issue Qualifying the risk involved in the research

– You may not find what you expect

Identifying the possible and likely out-comes

Types of problems

Descriptive.When a study is designed primarily to describe what is going on or what exists.

Relational.When a study is designed to look at the relationships between two or more variables.

Causal.When a study is designed to determine whether one or more variables causes or affects one or more outcome variables.

Scholarly Research

The researcher must be knowledgeable of the international state-of-the-art and know of the leading experts.

Must advance the state-of-the-art – create new knowledge

Must employ state-of-the-art research methods Generally involves some primary data

collection

Structuring of research problem statement

Methodological approach– The nature of the problem forces the approach

taken

Problem solving approach– Knowledge of the problem (known theory) forces

methodological approach

Research Method (methodological view point)

Washington identifies three research methods– Observational methods

Involves recorded or recording observations according to a plan– Example, the development of car following theory

– Experimental methods Changing one or more variables and observing the response

– Example, determining speed reduction due to speed calming technologies in the work zone

– Surveys Collecting information from subjects that is normally not available

– Example, collecting travel diaries to better understand trip chaining behavior

Steps in Research (taken from Washington)

Theory

Theory

Maze’s addition

Experimental Approach

Most commonly used Involves stating a hypothesis as part of the

problem definition Suppose that our original research issue is that

speed display monitors will make work zones more safe – how do we establish a research hypothesis to measure this?

Null Hypothesis

We either accept or reject the null The null and nil hypothesis are sometimes the

same– For example – when testing whether regression

parameters are statistically different than zero – the null and the nil are the same.

The null hypothesis should probably be what you feel you are most likely to nullify in the test.

Hypothesis statements

Hypothesis – we expect that the speed display monitor will result in statistically significant reduction in speed.– The null hypothesis is that speeds remains the

same (assume this means the mean speed)

The alternative hypothesis – The alternative hypothesis is that speed was

reduced

Typical Hypothesis Test Illustrates the Issues

Typically a test is performed to determine if there is a statistically significant difference in

– The mean value– The variance– The distribution

Level of significances is the area in the tails of the distribution

Formulated decision rules and set levels for the probability of error

Speed

Speed DistributionAfter ImplementingA Speed Display Monitor

Speed DistributionBefore ImplementingA Speed DisplayMonitor

Type I and II errors

lies in lies in acceptance interval rejection interval

Accept the No error Type II errorClaim

Reject the Type I error No errorclaim

Decision rules and set levels for the probability of error

AcceptReject

Area where we incorrectly reject Type I error, referred to as significance level)

Area where we incorrectly acceptType II error, referred to as

Issues

The way the hypothesis is stated is related to the potential for error

Much emphasis is placed on the statistical significant of a test and not on

When a test is stated, the research needs to understand the trade-off between level of statistical significances and

Problem solving approach (William M. Trochim )

Deductive reasoning works from the more general to the more specific. Sometimes this is informally called a top-down approach.

Inductive reasoning works the other way, moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories

Problem Solving approaches

Deductive Approach Inductive Approach

Deductive or experimental approach

Quantitative research– Involves theorizing or conceptualizing a relationship

(usually some kind of model) First step is to understand causal relationships Second step is to specify model (requires understanding of

the nature of the relationship)

– Empirical analysis affirms or disaffirms theory

Inductive approach

Quantitative research– Collecting the universe of variables– Conducting exhaustive search for relationships

First step – identifying statistical relationships Second step – theorizing causal relationships

– Empirical analysis is used to create theory

Deductive approach

Developing a theory– Develop a causal structure and order– Example – What causes people to travel

Demand for consumption (food, goods, life style) Work force participation – Travel to work Gather material – Travel for shopping Travel to life style enhancing experiences – Travel for

recreational and social events

Causal ordering

Demand to Consume

Work

Shopping

Social and Recreational

Trip Making

Demand toConsume

Work

Shopping

Social and Recreational

Trip Making

Why is causality importantThe rate of stork sightings and births increased in northern Europe following the end of WWII. What is the causation?

Couple has Baby

Stork’s feel flying is safeOver northern Europe

Storks return to Northern Europe

End of WWII

Male Soldiers return from War

Soldiers return to wife or girlfriend

Bombing in NorthernEurope ceases

Cau

sati

on

No Causation

Aggregation Fallacies

Caused by not knowing causality– Ecological Fallacy– Individual Fallacy– Selective Fallacy– Universal Fallacy– Contextual Fallacy– Cross-sectional Fallacy– Historical Fallacy

Fallacy Definitions – importance of understanding causation

Ecological Fallacy – Falsely inferring that what is true of the group must

be true of the individual Rich people make more trips therefore rich individuals

must like to spend more time in travel

Individualistic Fallacy– Falsely inferring that what is true of the individual is

true of the group Since I am Swedish and I am tall, all Swedes are tall

Fallacy Definitions Continued

Contextual Fallacy– What is valid for one group at one time is valid at another time

or under a different context It was a good idea to regulate commercial transportation in the

late 1890s and, therefore, reregulation is good idea today

Universal Fallacy– What is valid for the universe of individuals is valid for specific

groups The metropolitan area of Des Moines will benefit from the

reconstruction of I-235, therefore it is good for downtown Des Moines.

Data Fallacy continue

Cross-sectional Fallacy– Falsely extending one-time observation to all times

During the 1990s, tech stocks were the right vehicle for investment and therefore you should stick your money in tech stocks