Transportation Research Reflection

Research is an investigation where you do not know the solution before it starts but it is much more than performing experiments and reporting the results. This reflection report is about the lecture of scientific approaches to Transportation Research. In this reflection report you will know about, what can be considered to constitute good research practice and how to improve the quality of transportation research.

Before discussing the scientific approach let me tell you something about this word RESEARCH that what is meant by research? From the dictionary, Research is careful study and investigation, especially in order to discover new facts or information.

As we can say that research is an investigation so it means that it has some ethics and rules. Like the research one should not have stolen something from somewhere and should be done truthfully because Scientists, engineers and other professional researchers trust that the results reported by others are valid and without bias.

So that the result of the research can benefits the users of the result as he in need for the solution of the problem.

A researcher can perform research in three different ways;

• Experiments: Experiments are research studies conducted under specific and controlled conditions to verify or refute a working set of research hypotheses.

• Quasi-experiments: For a research study to be classified as a quasi-experiment, the researcher manipulates at least one variable, however, experimental units are not randomly assigned to different levels or categories of the manipulated variable

• Observational Studies: An observational study might have a large number of non-controlled random variables that are thought to affect the dependent variable.

Induction: it is also called generalization in which conclusions are drawn from scientific inquiries.

Deduction: it is also called logical reasoning or symbolic logic, by which testing of hypotheses in