Unit – I: Foundations of Research
Meaning, Objectives, Motivation, Utility. Concept of theory, empiricism, deductive and inductive theory. Characteristics of scientific, method - Understanding the language of Research - Concept, Construct, Definition, Variable. Research Process. Problem Identification and Formulation - Research Question – Investigation, Question - Measurement Issues - Hypothesis - Qualities of a good Hypothesis Null Hypothesis and Alternative Hypothesis. Hypothesis Testing - Logic and Importance. Research Design: Concept and Importance in Research - Features of a good research design - Exploratory Research Design - concept, types and uses, Descriptive Research Designs - concept, types and uses. Experimental Design: Concept of Independent and Dependent variables. Qualitative and Quantitative Research: Qualitative research – Quantitative research - Concept of measurement, causality, generalization, replication. Merging the two approaches.
Unit – II: Statistical analysis for Chemists
Errors in chemical analysis. Classification of errors- systematic and random, additive and proportional, absolute and relative. Accuracy and precision. Mean, median, average deviation and standard deviation. Significant figures and rules to determine significant figures. Calculations involving significant figures. Confidence limit, correlation coefficient and regression analysis. Comparison of methods: F-test and T-test. Rejection of data based on Q-test. Least squares method for deriving calibration graph. Application of Microsoft Excel in statistical analysis (statistical functions and spreadsheets in MS-Excel). Validation of newly developed analytical method. Certified reference materials (CRMs). Numerical problems.
Unit – III:
A] Scientific Writing and PresentationScientific writing. Basics in Scientific grammar. Importance of abbreviations and acronyms. Types of scientific publications- magazines, journals, reviews, news-letters, structure of scientific paper. Various reference styles.
Report Writing, Significance of report writing, different steps in report writing, types of Journals and reports, layout of research paper.
Research Ethics (Issues relating to referencing and documentation, copyrights, plagiarism), Impact Factor, CiteScore, h-Index, i10-Index, Citation Index, references/bibliography, structuring the thesis, use of software in thesis writing.
B] Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
Introduction to IPR (Patents, Trademarks, Geographical indicators, Copyright and neighbouring rights), Concept and theories, kinds of IPR, Economic analysis of IPR, Need for private rights versus public interests, Advantages and disadvantages of IPR.
Unit – IV: Use of tools / techniques for Research
Methods to search required information effectively, Reference Management Software like Zotero/Mendeley, Software for paper formatting like LaTeX, Beamer presentation, preparation of bibliography database, MS Word, MS Excel, Graph and chart preparation, MS Power Point, Microcal Origin, ChemSketch, ChemDraw, Other computational software like Guassian, Mathematica, Software for detection of Plagiarism.