Meaning of Research, Types of Research, Research Process, Problem definition, Objectives of Research, Research Questions, Research design, Approaches to Research – Quantitative vs. Qualitative Approach, Understanding Theory, Building and Validating Theoretical Models, Exploratory vs. Confirmatory Research, Experimental vs Theoretical Research, Importance of reasoning in research.
Problem Formulation, Understanding Modeling & Simulation, Conducting Literature Review, Referencing, Information Sources, Information Retrieval, Role of libraries in Information Retrieval, Tools for identifying literatures, Indexing and abstracting services, Citation indexes
Experimental Research: Cause effect relationship, Development of Hypothesis, Measurement Systems Analysis, Error Propagation, Validity of experiments, Statistical Design of Experiments, Field Experiments, Data/Variable Types & Classification, Data collection, Numerical and Graphical
Data Analysis: Sampling, Observation, Surveys, Inferential Statistics, and Interpretation of Results
Preparation of Dissertation and Research Papers, Guidelines for writing the abstract, introduction, methodology, results and discussion, conclusion sections of a manuscript. References, Tables and illustrations and Citation.
Intellectual property rights (IPR) – patents – copyrights – Trademarks – Ethics of Research- Scientific Misconduct – Forms of Scientific Misconduct – Plagiarism – Unscientific practices in thesis work.