The process of science

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The Process of Science by Anthony Carpi, Ph.D., Anne E. Egger, Ph.D.

Several years ago, a student working on an undergraduate research project in my laboratory approached me with concern. “I’m doing something wrong,” she exclaimed. I had seen her research results and knew she was making good progress, so I was surprised to hear that she was having a problem. Over the next several days we went through her experimental procedure, we reviewed her instrumental methods, and we examined her results; yet I could not find a problem with her work. Finally, I asked her the obvious question, “Why do you think you’re doing something wrong?” “Because I’m not getting what you said I should get,” she replied with some frustration. Her response startled me. After discussing it with her, I realized that she was mistaking an hypothesis for a foregone conclusion. I had not told her what she “should get,” but I was familiar with the existing literature and research in the area and we had discussed some published hypotheses several weeks earlier. When faced with valid research data that did not fit these predictions, I recognized that she had a novel finding and came to change my hypothesis. But she was interpreting her results as a mistake. Why was I startled by her response? Because despite almost four years of an intensive college science major behind her and several years of high school science experience, this student still prescribed to the common misconception that science is a rigid exercise in proving a pre-conceived point. That there is little creativity or discovery in science, but rather it is a tedious exercise in proving something we already know to be true. I was also startled because I realized that, although I spend many hours with my students, teaching them about scientific research procedures,