The steps involved in studying behaviour

Recipes for conducting research are rarely followed precisely and most scientists build their ways of investigation in periods of apprenticeship when they model themselves on the behaviour of more experienced colleagues. In considering the steps listed below you should be aware that many programmes of research enter the sequence at different points. In general, though, studying behaviour involves a number of inter-related processes in roughly the sequence in which we have listed them. We have described these steps in outline. Lehner (1996) and Hailman and Strier (2006) provide much fuller accounts of research methodology, although we depart from their schemes – particularly in the emphasis we have placed on our first five steps.

Ask a question

Before any scientific problem is investigated, some sort of question will have been formulated. The question may initially be a broad one, stemming from simple curiosity about a species or a general class of behaviour, such as ‘What does this animal do?’ Such a question is not a hypothesis.

The value of broad description arising from sheer curiosity should not be under-estimated. Alternatively, it may be possible at an early stage to formulate a much more specific question based on existing knowledge and theory, such as ‘Do big males of this species acquire more mates than small males?’ This is tacitly a hypothesis. Not surprisingly, research questions tend to become more specific as more is discovered about a particular issue.