The Research Roadmap Version 1.8
O1. Collegiality. Does the research respect the scientific community, by reading, referencing and building on other's work?
O2. Scientific thinking. Does the research give reasons before conclusions, and derive conclusions from what went before?
O5. Opinion statements. Are there unjustified opinion statements that cannot withstand critical review?
Introduction
I1. Title. Does the title describe the topic/contribution in an interesting way, and invite the reader to read on?
I2. Author(s). Are authors in contribution order, and could each present the publication at a conference?
I3. Abstract. Does the abstract state the paper's main purpose, results and implications?
I6. Purpose. Is the research purpose stated in a single sentence within the first few pages?
I7. Publication type. Is publication type (e.g. review, proposal or empirical study) stated early, so readers know what to expect?
T2. Literature review. Is the literature reviewed and analyzed by issues (agreements or contradictions), not as a sequential list of other's research?
T3. Topic Construct/ Dependent Variable. Is the topic construct (or dependent variable), which the research is mainly about, clearly identified or defined?
T4. Causal construct/ Independent variable. Is there confusion between what is causing and what is being caused?
T5. Conceptual framework. Is the conceptual framework the research will use stated, ideally with a diagram?
T6. Research question. Is the research question a single sentence (clear), with many possible answers (falsifiable), focused enough to allow feasible data collection (testable)?
T7. Research type. Is the chosen research type (exploratory, descriptive, correlational or explanatory) appropriate and feasible?
M2. Qualitative vs Quantitative. Is the method use appropriate, e.g. a qualitative, quantitative or mixed-method approach?
M4. Research Design. Is the logic of how the method's data will answer the research question explicitly stated?
M7. Reliability. Is measurement reliability considered, e.g. by precedence, testretest or split-half checks?
M8. Validity. Is measurement validity considered, e.g. by content, criterion and construct validity?
M9. Unit of research. Is the unit(s) of research specified, i.e. what is one data gathering “case?
M10. Procedure. Is the data collection procedure sequence described, with any tools used, e.g. introduction script?
M12. Question design*. Are questions asked of subjects understandable, unambiguous, unbiased, answerable and not offensive?
M13. Response scale design*. Are subject response scales easy to use, exhaustive and sensitive?
M14. Sample generalizability. Is it argued why sample results generalize to the population, e.g. that the sample is unbiased, big enough, and representative the population?
M16. Replicability. Does the method given allow another researcher to repeat it (e.g. provide scripts and tools)?
R1. Error type. Is the research rigorous enough (avoids Type I false claim errors), and sensitive enough (avoids Type II null result errors)?
R2. Data Conversion. Is how raw data was converted to descriptive data, and how missing values were handled, properly described?
R3. Demographics. Are sample demographics compared to population demographics?
R4. Information type. Is the information analyzed correctly according to type (qualitative, interval, ordinal, or categorical)?
R5. Descriptive summary. Is there a descriptive summary of the results (e.g. themes, or N, mean and variance) that is commented upon?
R6. Analytic statistics*. Are there analytic statistics for strength (e.g. Pearson 's r, Eta, Gamma, Phi, Lambda) and significance (e.g. t-test, F-test, Chi-squared), based on data type?
R8. Findings. Is each conclusion argued individually, one at a time, from the results?
R9. Tables*. Do tables have a title at the top, row/column headings, and a reference in the text?
R10. Frequency tables* Do frequency table percentages add up to 100% for each row, and vary the topic construct between rows?
R11. Mean tables* Do mean tables show dependent variable cell means varying by row/column causal variables?
R12. Graphs*. Do graphs have a title at the bottom, axis labels, and is the graph type (line, bar or pie) right for the information type?
R13. Summarize conclusions. Are the main research conclusions summarized in a numbered list, and is how they answer the research question?
D1. Research Contribution. Is the value this research adds, apart from what others have done, stated clearly?
D3. Implications. Are probable and possible implications of the findings for both theory and practice discussed?
D6. References. Are the references good quality, broad and up to date?
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©2008 Brian Whitworth & Tong Liu