1.

a) Research is the systematic investigation of materials, and sources to establish facts

and reach new conclusions.
Engineering research is systematic
 Ethical – must be applied to human objectives
 Conscious to the environment
 Yield practical outcome
 Based on standards of industry settings
 Must solve economic issues
 It must yield outcome which benefit humanitarian
b) Positivist – the scientific way of finding true knowledge, believe that true knowledge can
only be found through experiments and observations.
Steps for positivist are (0) theory (1) making observation (2) hypothesis (3) make prediction
(4) experimentation (5) finally analyzing results (6) theory. It’s a circular process that begins
with theory from the literature to built a testable hypothesis, design an experiment, conduct
experiment, the findings from such a study are used to help inform theory and contribute to
the literature, thereby completing the circular process.
c) Literature Review – a survey of scholarly materials related to a research topic questions
Objectives – track down latest knowledge, find gaps in knowledge, to assess for relevance, to
assess quality and to assess controversy
Significance – show relationship between previous studies or theories
To provide a context for you own research
Identify gaps in literature
Identify major seminal works
Find other people working in your field
To identify main methodologies and research techniques
To find out what information already exists in your field of research
Helps to know current state of information
To identify main ideas, conclusions and theories and establish similarities and
differences

2. a) Research design – the framework of a research methods and techniques chosen by a

researcher to conduct study.
Research design – is a strategy for answering your research questions using empirical data.
Significance of research design
  To provide plan of study that permits accurate assessment of cause-and-effect
relationships between independent and dependent variables
 Can make us save time
 Allows us to focus on more important activities.
Main elements of research design:
 Purpose statement, data collection techniques, methods of research data analysis, type
of research methodologies, possible obstacles to the research, settings for research
study, analysis measurements.

b)
qualitative quantitative

Descriptive; relating to Countable or measurable;

language relating to numbers
Data collection method Gathered by interviewing and Gathered by measuring and
observing counting
Biased and opinionated Fixed and universal
(varies from person to
person)
Data analysis Analyzed by perspective of Analyzed using statistical
research participants methods
purpose To get in-depth To get a broad comprehensive
understanding of a specific understanding of the issue
issue

c) A good research problem must address

i. It should address gap in knowledge
ii. It should contribute to exiting body or research
iii. It should lead to further research
iv. It should be grounded in theory
v. It must relate to one or more academic fields of study
d) Characteristics of a good research topic
i. concise and informative
ii. must in cooperate important keywords
iii. entice the reader
iv. must not contain abbreviations
v. descriptive, direct, accurate, appropriate, unique, must not be misleading
3. ‘Research Proposal’ is a simply structured, formal document that explains what you plan to
research.
‘Concept note’ It is a brief outline of the project you have in mind. Contains, an introduction,
a background, proposed objectives, results and a budget
b) key elements of research proposal
 title, introduction, background, objectives, literature review, data collection
techniques, justification
Concept note Research proposal
Brief outline of what you have in mind Contains everything required to conduct
research
Summary of a full proposal Shows all steps to answer the initial
question
Does not have methodology and literature Contains methodology and literature review
review

c) Innovation in engineering is defined as a method for solving technology and business

problems for organizations who want to enter new markets using emerging technologies.
Innovation is about successfully implementing a new idea and creating value for your
customers and stakeholders.
Vision 2030 – to become an upper middle-class economy
d) 3 phases of innovation
i. insight - idea generation
ii. incubation - identifying the problem -
iii. scaling – creating a solution –

4. a) types of research report writing

i. journal article
ii. reports
iii.
c) 5 main elements of a abstract

 summarize the project

 problem

 objectives

 methods
  results

 conclusion

 recommendations

5. Hypotheses is a statement which can be proved or disproved.

 Helps to prove whether data from the sample is statistically significant

 Used to evaluate the strength of evidence from the sample

 Provides framework for making determinations related to the populatioin