Scientific Thinking and Research Methodology

This course provides the students with the basic concept and nature of research and gives them a clear understanding of research philosophies and approaches.  It provides methodologies for formulating the research problems, constructing hypotheses, conceptualizing the research design, checking the validity and reliability of the research instrument, and collecting data for rigorous analyses. Methods to avoid Plagiarism are proposed. Scientific and Critical Thinking are discussed through the three universal principles, viz: the use of empirical evidence, the practice of logical reasoning, and possessing a skeptical attitude.  Templates and styles of writing the research work documents are also presented.   The course introduces common simple statistical methods.