The research process: Steps involved in conducting research

Last updated on 2025-03-28 | Edit this page

Estimated time: 12 minutes

Overview

Questions

  • What are the steps in a research process?

Objectives

  • List and briefly describe the five key steps in the research process.
  • Identify the correct sequence of the research steps.
  • Briefly explain the importance of each step in the research process.

Introduction

Inline instructor notes can help inform instructors of timing challenges associated with the lessons. They appear in the “Instructor View”

Challenge 1: Can you do it?

What is the output of this command?

R 

paste("This", "new", "lesson", "looks", "good")

OUTPUT 

[1] "This new lesson looks good"

Challenge 2: how do you nest solutions within challenge blocks?

You can add a line with at least three colons and a solution tag.

Figures

You can use standard markdown for static figures with the following syntax:

![optional caption that appears below the figure](figure url){alt='alt text for accessibility purposes'}

Blue Carpentries hex person logo with no text.
You belong in The Carpentries!

Callout

Callout sections can highlight information.

They are sometimes used to emphasise particularly important points but are also used in some lessons to present “asides”: content that is not central to the narrative of the lesson, e.g. by providing the answer to a commonly-asked question.

Math

One of our episodes contains LATEX equations when describing how to create dynamic reports with {knitr}, so we now use mathjax to describe this:

$\alpha = \dfrac{1}{(1 - \beta)^2}$ becomes: α=1(1−β)2

Cool, right?

Key Points

  • Use .md files for episodes when you want static content
  • Use .Rmd files for episodes when you need to generate output
  • Run sandpaper::check_lesson() to identify any issues with your lesson
  • Run sandpaper::build_lesson() to preview your lesson locally