The Scientific Research Cycle

In today’s class, we discussed the Scientific Research Cycle. We learned that this process has eight stages:

1.) wonder/doubt

2.) conceptualize

3.) theorize

4.) operationalize

5.) hypothesize

6.) observe

7.) analyze

8.) assess

We learned that different types of research (i.e. explanatory and descriptive research) put more emphasis on particular stages in the scientific research process. As the following chart illustrates, descriptive research is concerned with the observe stage of the research cycle, whereas explanatory research is more concerned with the hypothesize and assess stages.