Civil Engineering: Research Skills

• The module focuses on developing essential research skills for civil engineering.
• The learning outcomes include creating a conceptual framework, developing a research question, identifying appropriate literature, and compiling a bibliography with correct use of appendices.

Basic Research Skills

• Five basic skills are required for conducting research.
• The ability to generate ideas for research projects is crucial.
• Another is the ability to identify, source, and use appropriate literature.
• Developing research projects with a good fit among parts is important.
• Gathering and analyzing data effectively is a key skill.
• Communicating clearly and simply through writing is essential.

Turning Research Ideas into Projects

• Focus is key to successfully turning research ideas into research projects.
• Ask yourself what you are precisely interested in researching.
• Determine what exactly you wish to focus on in your research project.
• Researchability considers project achievability based on money and data access.
• A researchable projects are only when enough money and data is available.

Developing a Research Statement

• A research statement contains the conceptual framework for the research project
• Research is constrained by standards of validity, and validity relates to how logical, truthful, robust, sound, reasonable, meaningful, and useful the research is.
• Reliability relates to the dependability of the research.
• It asks to what degree the research can be repeated while still obtaining consistent results.

Aims and Objectives

• Aims and objectives are general statements of what the researcher intends to accomplish.
• Objectives specify how the researcher intends to accomplish the aim.
• Develop one aim and a series of objectives, no less than two and no more than six objectives.
• The aim of the research is simply the research statement or question re-stated as an aim.
• The objectives are specific steps to accomplish the aim, use short phrases, and start with an active verb.
• The objectives should detail the actions a researcher takes to achieve the aim and not include methodology or data gathering methods.

Source Appropriate Literature

• Literature is research already carried out, including journal articles, books, government papers, theses, and conference proceedings.
• Research should emerge from existing literature and contribute to the knowledge or theory in that area.
• A "gap" in the research means there is a need for research in that area and it would be a very good idea to develop your project as a response to that gap.
• Ability to source appropriate literature is a basic skill for research.
• Theorized research emerges from knowledge and contributes back
• Reading literature helps understand the research area, develop expertise, become aware of existing knowledge, and identify gaps.
• Published research accounts often make recommendations which can inform research project ideas

How to Identify Good Research

• When conducting a literature search one should be discerning
• You should check the date of publication and try to be as up-to-date as possible
• The credentials and origin of the authors should be checked.
• One should read the account of the research, and examine the validity of the research.
• The findings and conclusions of the research should be considered.
• The standard of the writing must be examined.

Data and Evidence

• In research, evidence is called data. Data can take many forms
• Testimony of human participants in a project.
• Reponses to a questionnaire.
• Documents, narratives, photographs, or films.
• Content of newspapers.
• The constraint is that the data must be valid.

Plagiarism

• Plagiarism is using someone else's work or ideas as your own, a serious offense.
• You should avoid plagiarizing by properly referencing everything that you take from any source, and using it in you own writing, or in any work that you present as your own.
• Plagiarism is serious and has penalties; submit original work with thorough references

Compiling a Bibliography

• A good bibliography is a resource for any scholar interested in the topic of the research, it also helps to demonstrate the scholarship of the project and its researcher.
• The bibliography demonstrates the breadth and depth of your reading and the sources you have used over your research.
• The bibliography includes published work used in the research project such as books, journal articles, government reports, newspaper articles, radio and television programs.
• When creating a bibliography, use the required style (e.g., APA), correctly copy reference details, check punctuation and spelling, and order information correctly without bullet points.

Using Appendices in Research

• Appendices are used to detail documents or artifacts relevant to the research but not detailed in the body.
• Examples of items to include in appendices, copies of letters seeking permission for the research project.
• Examples of items to include in appendices, data collection methods and instruments.
• Appendices are placed after the bibliography.
• Pages are not numbered.
• The word count is not included in the project's overall word count