Scientific Research Methods and Ethics 

Course Information
Course Instructor: Assistant Professor Ural Ufuk DEMİREL
E-mail: ural.demirel@altinbas.edu.tr
Office Hours: Please make an appointment via e-mail.

Course Objective

The aim of this course is to introduce the principles and methods of academic research and scholarly publishing. The course prepares students for the process of writing graduate theses and producing academic publications by equipping them with the necessary academic research techniques.

Course Content

The course covers the fundamentals of scientific research; the history of science and the concept of science; theory, paradigm, and scientific thinking; the scientific research process, including problem formulation, objectives, methodology, sampling, data collection, and analysis; types of data; measurement and scaling; quantitative and qualitative analysis methods; modeling; hypotheses and hypothesis testing; scientific ethics; and publication ethics.

Weekly Course Schedule

Week 1 – History of Science and Fundamentals of Scientific Research
Week 2 – The Concept of Science, Characteristics and Objectives of Science
Week 3 – Theory and Paradigm
(Including Kuhn’s approach to paradigms)
Week 4 – Scientific Research Process I
(Problem formulation, research objectives, literature review)
Week 5 – Scientific Research Process II
(Selection of research methods: quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods)
Week 6 – Data Collection Methods
(Questionnaires, interviews, observation, experiments, document analysis)
Week 7 – Sampling and Measurement
(Population and sample, sampling types, levels of measurement, and measurement scales)
Week 8 – Qualitative Research Methods
(Phenomenology, ethnography, content/discourse analysis, case studies)
Week 9 – Quantitative Research Methods and Descriptive Statistics
Week 10 – Modeling and Hypotheses
Week 11 – Types of Hypotheses and the Hypothesis Testing Process
Week 12 – Scientific Publication Writing and Academic Writing Conventions
Week 13 – Research Ethics and Publication Ethics
Week 14 – Plagiarism, Fabrication, Falsification, Duplicate Publication, and the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) Directive

References
National Defense University, Scientific Research Methods and Publication Ethics (course textbook)

Assessment and Grading
Midterm Examination: 40%
(Online via the UZEM platform)
Final Examination: 60%
(Face-to-face, on the date and at the time announced in the examination schedule)