Engineering Research

Design, Methods, and Publication

Herman Tang

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119624530
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Engineering General
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Master the fundamentals of planning, preparing, conducting, and presenting engineering research with this one-stop resource

Engineering Research: Design, Methods, and Publication delivers a concise but comprehensive guide on how to properly conceive and execute research projects within an engineering field. Accomplished professional and author Herman Tang covers the foundational and advanced topics necessary to understand engineering research, from conceiving an idea to disseminating the results of the project.

Organized in the same order as the most common sequence of activities for an engineering research project, the book is split into three parts and nine chapters. The book begins with a section focused on proposal development and literature review, followed by a description of data and methods that explores quantitative and qualitative experiments and analysis, and ends with a section on project presentation and preparation of scholarly publication.

Engineering Research offers readers the opportunity to understand the methodology of the entire process of engineering research in the real word. The author focuses on executable process and principle-guided exercise as opposed to abstract theory. Readers will learn about:

• An overview of scientific research in engineering, including foundational and fundamental concepts like types of research and considerations of research validity
• How to develop research proposals and how to search and review the scientific literature
• How to collect data and select a research method for their quantitative or qualitative experiment and analysis
• How to prepare, present, and submit their research to audiences and scholarly papers and publications

Perfect for advanced undergraduate and engineering students taking research methods courses, Engineering Research also belongs on the bookshelves of engineering and technical professionals who wish to brush up on their knowledge about planning, preparing, conducting, and presenting their own scientific research.

Part I
Overview, Proposal, and Literature Review

1
Research Overview

1.1 Introduction to Research

1.1.1 What Is Research?

Research is a universal word. Professionals in almost all disciplines are prosecuting doing research, such as in science, engineering, medicine, languages, literature, history, and business. There are various definitions of research. However, the process and requirements of research in some areas, such as medical science, might be better defined than that of other fields. While difficult to define research comprehensively and precisely in one sentence, we can understand research from its various aspects.

1.1.1.1 Seeking New Knowledge

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word research is derived from the French “recherché,” which means “to go about seeking.” Research concerns the seeking and creation of new knowledge and understanding the principles and characteristics of a phenomenon. For example, another definition of research is “the process of finding out something that we don't already know” (Hazelrigg n.d.). The new thing should be interesting or of concern to a profession or humanity. Research can be any kind of investigation that intends to uncover new facts.

The words “what” and “why” may be used to show what research is about. Knowledge takes two forms: “know that” and “know why.” The “know that” may be called declarative knowledge, which represents ideas and understanding. As such, declarative knowledge is relatively easy to teach and learn. The “know why” is about a type of functional knowledge, which varies with individual capability.

In many cases, scientific work includes applied research (R) and engineering development (D) called research and development (R&D) in short. Such R&D efforts can be either applied research, development, or a combination of both and in context of “know how.” The yields of most engineering and technical R&D are new or improved physical artifacts, such as software, products, and processes. Sometimes, the research characteristics of R&D may be debatable as far as its contributions to new knowledge.

A key to research is an innovation to professional community at large. Think about some efforts that may look like but are not research. Here are a few common types (Leedy and Ormrod 2016):

• Simply gathering information
• Merely rummaging around for hard-to-locate information
• Transfer of facts from on location to another

For example, the term “research” is often used for describing the act of information discovery in our daily life. For example, if one is looking for a new car, he/she may do “research” on various features, models, safety records, price, etc. When looking for a job, one would “research” the websites of companies with openings. These types of everyday exploratory activities are good for an individual's purposes, but no contribution to the general knowledge of a professional community. Therefore, such acts and efforts of information search are not scientific research because the information is not new to professional community.

1.1.1.2 A Systems Viewpoint

We may view a research project as a system (Figure 1.1), which can have different objectives and tasks, such as analysis, experiment, and computer simulation. From a system viewpoint, doing research is to invest inputs, consider influencing factors and distributions, and do original and diligent work for the expected outcomes. Accordingly, one of the important characteristics of research from a systems viewpoint is to deal with the complex relationship among inputs and controllable factors.

Figure 1.1 A system view of research project.

For a defined purpose or curiosity, knowledge exploration starts from observations. Figure 1.2 shows the overall process flow of systematic knowledge exploration: (i) basic research and (ii) applied research and R&D (problem-solving).

Figure 1.2 Overall processes of basic and applied research. (a) Basic research, (b) applied research and R&D.

After identifying a research question or problem, we need to establish our guess, or hypotheses, for basic research. Based on the question and hypotheses defined, we then develop a detailed study plan. For a relatively simple problem, we may directly address it.

Following the plan, we conduct the study, which includes data collection, analysis, and interpretation. In most cases, we submit our findings for publications to share with others. It is often the case that research results promote new questions. Following this circular process, the understanding and knowledge on a particular subject can continuously deepen and widen.

Exploring new knowledge never ends. “Research is iterative and depends upon asking increasingly complex or new questions whose answers in turn develop additional questions or lines of inquiry in any field...