Whichever reasoning processes and research methods were used, the final decision is critical, determining success or failure. If an otherwise excellent experiment is summarized past a weak conclusion, the results will not exist taken seriously.

Success or failure is not a mensurate of whether a hypothesis is accepted or refuted, because both results still advance scientific knowledge.

Failure lies in poor experimental pattern, or flaws in the reasoning processes, which invalidate the results. Every bit long every bit the research process is robust and well designed, then the findings are sound, and the process of drawing conclusions begins.

The key is to constitute what the results mean. How are they applied to the world?

What Has Been Learned?

By and large, a researcher will summarize what they believe has been learned from the research, and will try to assess the strength of the hypothesis.

Even if the null hypothesis is accepted, a strong conclusion volition analyze why the results were non as predicted.

Theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli was known to have criticized another physicist's work by saying, "it's not only not right; it is not even wrong."

While this is certainly a humorous put-down, information technology also points to the value of the naught hypothesis in scientific discipline, i.e. the value of being "wrong." Both accepting or rejecting the nil hypothesis provides useful data – information technology is only when the inquiry provides no illumination on the phenomenon at all that it is truly a failure.

In observational research, with no hypothesis, the researcher volition analyze the findings, and found if whatsoever valuable new information has been uncovered. The conclusions from this type of research may well inspire the development of a new hypothesis for further experiments.

Generating Leads for Future Enquiry

However, very few experiments requite clear-cut results, and most inquiry uncovers more questions than answers.

The researcher can utilize these to propose interesting directions for further study. If, for example, the nada hypothesis was accepted, there may withal have been trends apparent within the results. These could form the basis of further written report, or experimental refinement and redesign.

Mini quiz:

Question: Let'southward say a researcher is interested in whether people who are ambidextrous (can write with either hand) are more likely to have ADHD. She may take three groups – left-handed, right-handed and ambidextrous, and enquire each of them to complete an ADHD screening.

She hypothesizes that the ambidextrous people will in fact be more prone to symptoms of ADHD. While she doesn't notice a significant divergence when she compares the mean scores of the groups, she does notice some other trend: the ambidextrous people seem to score lower overall on tests of verbal vigil. She accepts the aught hypothesis, but wishes to continue with her research. Can you lot retrieve of a direction her research could take, given what she has already learnt?

Answer: She may determine to expect more closely at that trend. She may design another experiment to isolate the variable of verbal acuity, by controlling for everything else. This may eventually help her make it at a new hypothesis: ambidextrous people take lower exact vigil.

Evaluating Flaws in the Research Process

The researcher volition and so evaluate any apparent bug with the experiment. This involves critically evaluating whatever weaknesses and errors in the pattern, which may take influenced the results.

Fifty-fifty strict, 'true experimental,' designs take to make compromises, and the researcher must exist thorough in pointing these out, justifying the methodology and reasoning.

For case, when cartoon conclusions, the researcher may call back that some other causal effect influenced the results, and that this variable was not eliminated during the experimental process. A refined version of the experiment may help to achieve meliorate results, if the new event is included in the design process.

In the global warming instance, the researcher might institute that carbon dioxide emission lone cannot be responsible for global warming. They may decide that another effect is contributing, and then suggest that methane may also exist a gene in global warming. A new study would incorporate methane into the model.

What are the Benefits of the Research?

The next stage is to evaluate the advantages and benefits of the inquiry.

In medicine and psychology, for case, the results may throw out a new style of treating a medical problem, so the advantages are obvious.

In some fields, certain kinds of research may non typically exist seen as beneficial, regardless of the results obtained. Ideally, researchers will consider the implications of their inquiry beforehand, also as whatsoever upstanding considerations. In fields such as psychology, social sciences or sociology, information technology'south important to recall about who the research serves and what will ultimately be washed with the results.

For case, the report regarding ambidexterity and verbal vigil may exist interesting, only what would be the effect of accepting that hypothesis? Would it really benefit anyone to know that the ambidextrous are less probable to take a high exact acuity?

Yet, all well-constructed research is useful, even if it but strengthens or supports a more than tentative determination made past prior research.

Suggestions Based Upon the Conclusions

The final stage is the researcher'due south recommendations based on the results, depending on the field of written report. This area of the research procedure is informed by the researcher's judgement, and will integrate previous studies.

For example, a researcher interested in schizophrenia may recommend a more constructive treatment based on what has been learnt from a study. A physicist might advise that our moving picture of the structure of the cantlet should be changed. A researcher could make suggestions for refinement of the experimental design, or highlight interesting areas for further study. This final piece of the paper is the most disquisitional, and pulls together all of the findings into a coherent agrument.

The expanse in a research paper that causes intense and heated fence amongst scientists is oftentimes when cartoon conclusions.

Sharing and presenting findings to the scientific customs is a vital part of the scientific procedure. Information technology is here that the researcher justifies the research, synthesizes the results and offers them up for scrutiny by their peers.

As the store of scientific noesis increases and deepens, information technology is incumbent on researchers to work together. Long agone, a single scientist could discover and publish work that alone could have a profound bear on on the course of history. Today, all the same, such impact can only be achieved in concert with fellow scientists.

Summary - The Forcefulness of the Results

The fundamental to drawing a valid conclusion is to ensure that the deductive and inductive processes are correctly used, and that all steps of the scientific method were followed.

Even the best-planned inquiry can get amiss, however. Part of interpreting results also includes the researchers putting aside their ego to assess what, if anything went wrong. Has anything occurred to warrant a more cautious interpretation of results?

If your research had a robust pattern, questioning and scrutiny volition exist devoted to the experiment conclusion, rather than the methods.

Mini-quiz:

Question: Researchers are interested in identifying new microbial species that are capable of breaking down cellulose for possible awarding in biofuel product. They collect soil samples from a particular forest and create laboratory cultures of every microbial species they detect there. They then "feed" each species a cellulose chemical compound and notice that in all the species tested, at that place was no decrease in cellulose subsequently 24 hours.

Read the following conclusions below and decide which of them is the most sound:

1. They conclude that there are no microbes that tin break downwardly cellulose.

2. They conclude that the sampled microbes are not capable of breaking down cellulose in a lab surroundings within 24 hours.

3. They conclude that all the species are related somehow.

4. They conclude that these microbes are not useful in the biofuel industry.

5. They conclude that microbes from forests don't break down cellulose.

Answer: The most advisable conclusion is number 2. As you lot tin can see, audio conclusions are often a question of not extrapolating too widely, or making assumptions that are not supported by the data obtained. Fifty-fifty conclusion number ii will likely be presented as tentative, and only provides evidence given the limits of the methods used.