What is empirical research?
- Asad Khan
- Mar 20, 2019
- 4 min read
“Empirical research is a method of the testing hypothesis by using direct or indirect observations, experiences and experiments”
The word empirical explains knowledge deductive from experiences, observations and experiments. One of the imperatives of scientific research is that the research must be empirical in nature which means that hypothesis in scientific research has the tendency to be tested using empirical process.
Philosophical meanings of empiricism are “collection of information based on experiences, observations and experiments”. In other words, empirical research is the practical implication of experience using systematic experiments. Empirical data is created using experiments and observations and can be either qualitative or quantitative in nature.
Why empirical research is necessary?
Empirical research is based on observations and experiences but its scope goes beyond that. Only observations cater to nothing. It’s the scientists’ ability to constitute empirical research by formally operationalizing the observations using testable hypothesis.
In a better-performed research, experiences and observations about the real world are present in the form of research question or hypothesis. It’s up to the researcher to make sense of this information by recording findings quantitatively or qualitatively.
In empirical research, techniques change according to the field of study or aim of the study. For example, qualitative methods are suitable for social sciences whereas quantitative methods are appropriate for applied sciences such as physics and medicines.
However, the purpose of empirical research is to attempt to make observations and then answer questions through rejection or acceptance of a research question keeping in view those observations.
Empirical research is perceived as a systematic way of asking questions and testing those questions. Rational argument, opinion, conjecture, abstract realms or anything associated to metaphysical are also ways of extracting knowledge. But empiricism is related to the real world and makes sense of it using different observations and experiments.
Why researchers must conduct empirical research methods?
Generally, science while empiricism specifically tends to collect knowledge about the natural world. There are many empiricism standards available to ensure the credibility of the knowledge achieved using empirical research methods. For example, researchers are not authorized to show biases or expectation or adopt ways to affect the outcomes but results must be supported by the natural empirical process.
Science backs knowledge which has strong evidence. Therefore, science moves with testing knowledge of one hypothesis at a time. The empirical research standards e.g. acceptability or falsifiability ensure that empirical research knowledge is self-correcting as it goes along.
Eventually, empirical evidence constitute empirical theories which can be changed or altered considering the scope of questions in research. There are many types of question designs that have been used by researchers. It only depends on the interest of a researcher to select the theory or question type.
The scientific cycle
It is perceived that empirical research method is the only way of gaining knowledge. On the contrary, it is not true. Students of sciences think that “empirical scientific research” and “science” are the same but different names. In fact, empiricism is one of the tools of science for gaining information. Similarly, science has many other tools in its arsenal for gaining knowledge or testing a hypothesis.
Practically, empirical and non-empirical are used in synchronization to achieve qualitative and quantitative data combined. This combined data is more effective and accurate for the representation of research results. A scientific cycle consists of these stages;
Observation
Observation means collection and organization of empirical data. For example, a biologist can observe that individuals in bird’s species do not migrate in some years but definitely will travel in other years. He might also observe that when these individuals migrate they are larger in size in these years as migration takes a toll on physiological conditions of the birds.
2. Induction
Induction is used to formulate a hypothesis. Induction is a process which helps in reaching a conclusion by collecting huge premises that supports a claim. For example, in the above-mentioned research and well-known knowledge available about the migratory research of birds it can be questioned that “is heavyweight of bird necessary for migration of a bird each year?” Here researcher can say yes it is necessary and stops the research. However, this research will not be satisfactory and not even it will be called “scientific research”. It will be mere conjecture. A scientist will try to find a way to test his hypothesis empirically. He can devise an experiment in which he will weigh the birds and will observe if birds with heavyweight migrate or not.
3. Deduction
Deduction uses logic and rationality for extracting a conclusion from broader premises. Deduction helps the researcher to orchestrate the logic behind the adopted experimental design. For example, in the logic of the above-given example would be “if higher bird weight is the criteria for migration then there will be a migration of only those birds which have higher weight”. It also implicates that birds with low weight can’t opt to migrate which is not true. Therefore, it can be concluded that bird weight is not connected to migration at all.
5. Testing
Testing of the hypothesis is coming back to empirical methods to place the hypothesis to test. According to the above mentioned example, a biologist now has the make sense of the date after planning his experiment, conducting the research and finding the result. At this stage, a biologist will use statistical tools to show any correlation between the weight of the bird and migration. If biologist finds something which says that birds with higher weight end up migrating each year then he has found sufficient support for his hypothesis. It should be noted that biologist still has not found proof of this association.
4. Evaluation
This is the step which researchers often forget to mention in the research. In the step, researchers tend to offer explanations and interpretations about a phenomenon. Evaluation and interpretation set the results to a broader context. Often scientists set the limitations of the study and demark the places from where further studies must be started.
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