Week
Research Methodology in IT
Semester II -2024-25
Lecturer : Dr. Mbemba HYDARA
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Session topics
• Alternative Models of the
Research process
• Review of Literature
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Alternative Model:
Conceptualize, Operationalize Generalize
Conceptualize your research topic:
• Make clear what the question or problem is
• How you plan to address it
• Include theories from the literature to use
• Research approach to adopt(strategies, methods, legal
aspects, ethical issues and research philosophy)
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3
Operationalize:
Put your plans into effect
Follow your strategy
Generate and analyze your data and or
Develop and test a computer based system
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The Software analogy
• Research process can be characterize by using system
development life cycle (SDLC) .
• Developing a computer based system
• Systems development and research are concerned with
creating something new
• Systems development create new software
• Research creates new knowledge .
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Stages of SDLC
The SDLC has four main stages :
• Analysis , Design, Implementation and testing
phases
• Each of the stages has an analogy in stages of the
research process.
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Analysis
• SDL analyze current system, if one exits.
• Analyze the proposed system and
• Produce a requirements specifications - which
normally include a number of systems objective.
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Analysis contd.
• Research analyze current state of knowledge
(literature review) .
• Decide what still needs to be done and
• Develop a research proposal - which normally
include research question and objective
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Design
• SDLC: Design the planned system , at high
level (centralized vs distributed system,
relational vs objected oriented database
• At detail level ( produce story board, design a
database , write program algorithms)
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Design contd.
Research : Design the planned research, at high
level ( strategy to be used),
Detail level (Data generation methods within the
chosen strategy)
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Implementation
SDLC: Follow design to develop the
software (write the program code or
produce the webpages)
Research: Follow the design to do the
research (issue a questionnaire, and analyse
the responses)
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Testing
SDLC: Follow system to see if it
functions as intended
Meet requirements specification or client
briefs
Accepted by the users
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Reviewing Literature
• Purpose of Literature Review
• Objective of Literature Review
• Literature Sources
• Internet and Literature Review
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Purpose of Literature Review
• Students explore literature for suitable research ideas
• Discover relevant materials about any possible research topic
• Example: journals publications, Authors frequently cited in articles
about the problem, and survey articles that review previous work
on an particular topic and identify were more research is needed
• These helps students get a feel for the area and define a research
problem,
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Purpose of Literature Review contd.
• The aim is to gather present evidence to support your claim
that you have created some new knowledge
The meaning of Thesis –
• To propose or maintained an argument.
• This is achieved by presenting evidence from the literature
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Purpose of Literature Review contd.
Researcher collate evidence to support their claims that:
• The topic is worthwhile
• The research does not merely repeat the work of others
• The researcher has created some new knowledge that
was not known before.
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Objectives of Literature Review
• Show that researcher is aware of existing work in the
chosen field
• Place the researcher’s work in the context of what has
already been published
• Point to strengths, weaknesses, omissions or bias in the
previous work.
• Identify key issues or crucial questions that are troubling
the research community.
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Objectives of Literature Review contd.
• Suggest theories that might explain data the
researcher has gathered from the field
• Identify theories, methods, algorithms that will be
incorporated in the development of a computer
application
• Identify research methods or strategies that the
researcher will use in the field.
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Objectives of Literature Review contd.
• Provide the foundation for your research
Citing relevant work alone is not enough:
• Your ability to discover, analyze and evaluate what has been
done before also count.
• Synthesize this ability into coherent account that justifies your
own research and places it in context.
• Your literature should help provide the conceptual framework
for your research
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Literature sources
• There is a wide range of sources to use in a
literature review
• Books, Journal articles, Conference papers, and
catalogues, manuals, Reports, multimedia
literature etc.
• Example of highly rated journals in IS and
computer science: ACM computing survey,
IEEE, Springer, Science Direct Information
system research, Communication of ACM
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Conducting Literature review
• Break literature down into seven different
activities.
• Searching, obtaining, assessing, reading, critically
evaluating and writing a critical review
• When conducting a literature review you should
never plagiarize.
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Conducting Literature review contd.
• Use search engine or Online database
• Catalogues
• Define key words or search terms
• Use them methodologically to produce a list of
useful references
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Conducting Literature review contd.
• Start by thinking your topic or area of interest.
• For example: You are interested in the use of IT
in sales and marketing
• Are you interested in all kinds of IT , or specific
types,
• For example, websites, mobile phones,
interactive digital television ?
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Alternative terms for research concepts
Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3 Concept 4
Attitude advertising Mobile phones Text messaging
Splitting a research topic into separate concepts
Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3 Concept 4
Attitude advertising Mobile phones Text messaging
Beliefs marketing Cell phones sms
Prejudices selling Telephones
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Using Symbols and Boolean operators in a
search?
Example Outcome
Attitud* Results contain words such as attitude,
attitudes, attitudinal
Mobile AND phones Results contain both terms, but they do not
necessarily occur together
Mobile OR phones Results contain at least one of these terms
Mobile phones’ Results contain the phrase “mobile phones’
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Obtaining
• Once list of useful references are
developed,
• You can now obtained them from your
library, interlibrary loan, university staff
websites
• Use of search engines
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Assessing
• Assess the credibility of of you sources, For
example in book
• Is the author someone eminent in the field
• Have you heard of the publisher before
• Is the publisher a university press ( Oxford
university press) assurance of academic quality of
the work.
• Is the first, second or third edition
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Journals and Conferences
• Is it aimed at academics or practioner?
• Concentrate those aimed at academic
• How long has the journal existed?
• Does it provide list of editorial board?
• Conference:
• Is and academic conference ?
• Does the conference give detail of programme
committee?
• Where all papers accepted presentations ?
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Web pages
• Does the site make clear who owns it and
provide contact details ?
• Does it seem to be authoritative?
• Does it show when it was updated ?
• Is it up to date?
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Reading and Critically Evaluating
Reading:
• Having obtained a literature source, you have to read
it.
• No need to read everything
• Concentrate first on the abstract for a journal
• Then read introduction and conclusion
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Critically Evaluating contd.
• You need to critically evaluate your text
• Look for relevance to your own research work
• Is it useful to you? Why?
• Check for omission in the paper
• Do you think its conclusion are justified on the basis of evidence provided
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Recording
• Keep records of summaries of work read or consulted.
• Keep brief summary of the content – serve as aid to your memory
• A brief summary of your evaluation – The sooner you can devise
such a system that suits you, the better possibly in a tabular form.
• Bibliography details for the literature source, so that you, your
examiners and anyone else who reads your paper or thesis can find
the text again
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Task 1
Now that you know something about research process, you can start to analyze and
evaluate how other researchers have described their process;
Ask your colleagues to suggest a journal in your area of interest that is widely read.
Analyze one complete volume of it (that is, a yea’s worth of articles to see which
research strategies and data generation methods are used. Decide whether you will
prefer to:
a) Follow the strategy and methods used by the majority of researchers in your area;
b) Follow a less –used research methodology
c) What are the advantages and disadvantages?
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Task 1
Use the evaluation guide below to help you.
1. Do the researcher make clear their research questions?
2. Do the researcher explain the theory (ies) they use to conceptualize the
research topic?
3. Do the researchers make clear their strategy and the data generation method(s)
within that strategy?
4. Do the researchers indicate their criteria for judging the success or benefits of
the work?
5. Is there a clear processed summarized, from the original motivation and
literature review through to final outcome(s)? If not , how does that affect your
confidence in the research and its strategy?
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Week
4
End of Lecture
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