what's best?

[daisy]

What do you think is a better approach in research (and why):

a) Use a technique you're highly experienced in to test many different systems/theories, or

b) Use many different techniques to explore the particular problem/area you are interested in.

 

I ask this because I think if you want to make money in science you choose path a) but if you are really into academic research and problem solving you'll choose path b).

[Dudde]

I think you're right on with that statement Daisy. If I were trying to make money (because that's all science is these days:-p commies) I would use technique A, because it would be the most efficient

to enhance the educational value of the process however, I would choose B. It would also heighten the entertainment I don't like repitition.

[Glider]

I think using the technique appropriate to the problem is best. If the problem requires a triangulation approach, then use it. If not, don't (it just wastes time and resources).

 

I'm not sure I understand the question though; research methods have to be dictated by the topic under investigation. I don't see how what you are being paid to do the investigation can affect your choice of method(s).

[daisy]

Payment or financial gain was not really my main point....just my cynical view taking over. But I do know that there are some researchers who have a pet technique which they tend to use to investigate a broad range of questions within a particular field. Of course if your topic is highly specialised then it will dictate method but equally I know people who get bees in their bonnets about some newly developed technique and want to apply it to evrything they can get their hands on.

[Glider]

Ahhh...gotcha...I know researchers like that. Same applies to kit. They get an expensive new toy and want to use it on everything, like firing up a new functional magnetic resonance imager to investigate a sick bee they found in the car park, kind of thing

[YT2095]

I must confess to being guilty of doing the same thing myself.

The lastest was a new microscope I bought for myself, but in the same week the wife bought me a webcam, well after examining everything I could possibly think of around the lab and the house (including some rather obscenely biological stuff). I then made a mount so that I could veiw these things with my webcam and see them on the monitor instead of the eye peice, I now have a rather extensive set of .Jpegs of completely useless pictures of close up things

 

I`m torn between "Boys and their toys" or Children will play" the wife recons the latter in my case