Scientific Inquiry

Mr. Wai-Pan Chan2013

Scientific InquiryResearch & Exploratory Investigation

• Scientific inquiry is a way to investigate things, events or phenomena OR to acquire new knowledge OR to correct previous knowledge by proposing a hypothesis, gathering and observing empirical or measurable evidence and data through experimentation, explaining and analyzing the results based on principles of logics and reasoning to come up with a conclusion, a solution or a new discovery.

Important contents• Hypothesis: pre-knowledge; observation of phenomenon;

formulation of questions; prediction; proposed methodology

• Experimental design (material, procedure, data collection)

• Execution of Experiment:Testing & Data collection & Data recording

• Data analysis (organizing data, compare & contrast, trending, Confirmation or disproval of hypothesis)

• Socratic Questioning (clarification, assumptions, rationale, perspectives, implications, motives)

• Reflection• Conclusion and further conjecture with new hypothesis

Scientific Research and Exploratory Investigation

• Hunting: set goal and collect evidence towards that goal. Advantage: focus, and reach goal faster; Disadvantage: filtered observation and collection of result, may miss important discovery

• Exploring: no set goal but try to collect all data without filtration. Advantage: able to find new discovery; Disadvantage: takes long time and needs to be very careful

Scientific Research and Exploratory Investigation

What is Scientific Inquiry• Tools to be used: communication skill, collaborative

skill (teamwork), personal skill, critical thinking• Define the scope of science by Literature search &

Preliminary exploration• Establish Hypothesis: observation, pre-knowledge,

guess• Define goal (answers, projection, new discovery),

focus (reductionism, priority, efficiency) and scope of interest

Scientific Inquiry-1 Questioning• Acquire basic knowledge• Understanding, Reflection, Literature Search• Formulation of question: process from generalized to specific• A research question is an extension of your purpose statement

and specifically states the questions you will attempt to answer. Usually, research questions are used when your study’s purpose is more exploratory or descriptive.

• Review prior research • Determine Research Hypothesis and its Purpose: • Explore: an attempt to generate ideas about the subject• Describe: an attempt to describe the characteristics of the

subject• Explain: an attempt to show why and how• List all the “unknowns” and the “lack of information”• Formulate questions for each one

Scientific Inquiry-2 Experimental design

• Define the types of experiments to proof the hypothesis

• Estimate different perspectives to determine number of experiments needed

• Estimate the outcome of each experiment and propose alternatives for variable results

• Set up protocol: or use of current SOP• Logistics: create list of materials, equipment, and

data analysis tools and set up experiments• How to executing experiments, observe, record in a GLP rules• How to tabulate, graph and organize data according to the

goals• How to interpret the data, or results by comparing to the

searched literatures

Scientific Inquiry-3 Make appropriate conclusions

– Summarize the result and analysis– How does the conclusion answer the hypothesis– What are the discrepancies and the source of

error– Future alternatives to answer a. unanswered

questions; b. incomplete answers; c. new questions

– What are the improvements that can be made to achieve the goal of exploring the extensions of the hypotheses