- What is the scientific method?
- What are the steps of the scientific method?
- How do you do an investigation?
We explain what the scientific method is and what its steps are. Also, how a scientific investigation is carried out.
What is the scientific method?
The scientific method is aprocess Through which it seeks to establish relationships between events to enunciate laws that support the functioning of the world. This method can be extrapolated to almost allSciences.
The scientific method must meticulously follow certain steps to guarantee scientific quality results based on empirically verifiable evidence. It is sometimes used to shed light on topics that were poorly studied or that have not been explained in all its variants. Other times, it serves to give a new explanation to a phenomenon or to refute a particular interpretation.
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What are the steps of the scientific method?
A project may or may not include an experimentation stage.- Observation. The researcher observes the reality that surrounds it and finds some question or trouble to be resolved that is relevant to him. It is important that a detailed and concise observation of the phenomenon is made. This stage is vital to later develop a deep approach to the observed phenomenon.
- Induction or questions. At this stage the researcher raises a series of questions or queries about the observed phenomenon.
- I pose a hypothesis of work. The hypothesis is a statement with a theoretical base that relates twovariables. It is a tentative answer to the question posed. There is also the type of investigative work in which the hypothesis, faced with a negative or contradictory case, is reconfigured, redefined and modified so that it can always explain the new cases with which it is contrasted.
- Experimentation. In this stage, the hypothesis is tested through the management of the variables that compose it. The experimentation will corroborate or reject the relationship raised in the hypothesis. The hypothesis is tested to see if it is proven in all cases. In the event that the hypothesis cannot be verified, a new one may be formulated. A project may or may not include this stage, which is actually characteristic of the research What do the natural Sciences. In the case ofsocial Sciences your investigations can do without experimentation. The main objective of this stage is to recreate the “natural” conditions within the environment and the framework of the scientific experiment. Simulating the same conditions, counting on the same or similar elements that make up the phenomenon studied.
- Conclusions.. Detailed a report about the results and conclusions reached with the completion of the scientific investigation. From the results obtained, theories, scientific laws and contributions that contribute to the characterization of a phenomenon can be derived.
How do you do an investigation?
All scientific research seeks to achieve a objective. The scientific method has a series of steps through which to approach the phenomenon to be studied.
Nothing stipulates what the start of a scientific project should be, it can only be the experience personal on some matter, the motivation, aNews of the newspaper, an analysis of a scientific journal, an unsolved problem or a concern to solve some aspect of thelife everyday.
There are a series of suggestions to follow for the development of an investigation:
- Select a topic of interest: What topics interest me? Why?
- Organize the available material on the selected topic.
- Discover and analyze the phenomena that are part of that topic. The questions that arise from this observation of the phenomenon to be studied serve as a guide for the investigation project.
- Follow the steps of the scientific method. The questions asked allow to develop a hypothesis (possible answer to these questions) that will try to be verified through experimentation. Strictly and rigorously following the steps of the scientific method allows giving empirical and verifiable answers to the questions posed about a certain phenomenon.
- Make a research portfolio detailing the steps and discoveries, conclusions and bibliography.