Canadian Center of Science and Education Offers Tips for Designing a Research Study

Canadian Center of Science and Education supports research efforts in a major way. As such, the organization is happy to provide tips regarding the design of an effective study. Research plays an integral role in the world and, in many disciplines, is a very competitive field. To ensure that you have the best chance at securing funding, it is crucial that you follow these tips when mapping out your research initiative.

• Clearly define the goals of your study before you do anything else. You might decide that you are going to try to achieve more than one objective, but it is important that all of the goals you set are related and are realistic.
• Research the factors that will play a role in your initiative. For instance, consider a study that is going to attempt to determine the best treatment for disease X between treatments A, B, C, and D. You need to make sure that you read up on disease X in order to understand exactly what you are dealing with. Additionally, you should do all the research you can on treatments A, B, C, and D in order to best hypothesize which course of action will work most effectively.

But researching these variables and factors is important for another reason. What if a study was already conducted, showing B is the best? Is it feasible to use the information provided by that study as a stepping stone, or is your proposed initiative now irrelevant? Successful research is not just that which answers the questions posed by its investigators. Relevant studies are able to fill gaps in a field’s knowledge regarding a specific problem or idea.

• Design a plan of action that you will follow throughout your initiative. The basic scientific method is a great outline, but you will need to fill in some details. For instance, how will you quantify the success of the treatments in the hypothetical study proposed above? Will you test each treatment in one volume, or will you use multiple volumes to study their different results? These are the details that will guide your efforts when you feel overwhelmed with data or lost on the sea of observations—and as such they are extremely important.
• Think about how your research will fit into the grand scheme of things. Grant and other funding applications are not easy to complete, and they certainly ask the hard questions when it comes to why your study should receive funding over someone else’s. Make sure that you know why it is essential for you to carry out your initiative. Try asking yourself questions, such as what the information you uncover will do for future generations, to come up with these details.

In all honesty, developing a research study is neither as easy nor as difficult as it may first seem. The true challenge lies in maintaining a simple research structure while also providing for the intricate and detailed processes that you will follow while carrying out your initiative. With these tips, Canadian Center of Science and Education knows that you can better stay focused on your goals.