What is Research?
Systematic investigation of a certain topic which results in coming to a conclusion about the subject based on the information gathered. Includes any formal gathering of information or data, as long as it serves a purpose in the research required. What counts as research and what is done depends on the intent of the research, and ‘research’ includes everything from start to finish of the scientific method used to come to the end conclusions about the subject. It’s generally alright to have an idea of what you’re looking for in the research, as long as it doesn’t create a bias in the research and you still look for data which contradicts what you expect to find. (https://explorable.com/definition-of-research)
Research failure is a scenario where a certain aspect of research into a subject has been missed or improperly done – This can mean either making a mistake in an assumption for the research, or completely missing critical information about the subject. The reasons for this occurring can vary, but often it will come from the researcher(s) either going into the research with a specific outcome in mind (and failing to consider perspectives which don’t correlate to the desired outcome), or by having an assumption about the research subject which never gets fact-checked, and becomes a more glaring fault in their work later on.
A research failure is not the same as an endeavour to prove something as true or false failing and instead proving the opposite to be the case – A case of a research endeavour failing could be the Michelson-Morley experiment, which set out to prove that light would travel at different speeds depending on the ‘flow’ of the medium is was moving through, but instead found that the speed was actually constant regardless of the movement of the medium light was moving through. (https://ssec.si.edu/stemvisions-blog/most-famous-failed-experiment) This isn’t actually the same as a research failure however, as while it proved the original theory to be incorrect, it did come to a new understanding of the medium and otherwise can be considered a success as an actual research endeavour. Research failures aren’t related to the objective success or failure of the basis behind the research, only if there is a fundamental flaw of some kind which affects the reliability of the research.
For product research failures, this can simply be a case of assuming there’s a market for a specific product without actually putting in the research to see if that was actually the case, resulting in the overall product failing due to a lack of consumer interest (which was the case for products such as 3D TV, the Fuelband and the Amazon Fire Phone – 3D TV for lack of interest in the product, and the fire phone and FuelBand being too redundant to sell well).
One example of research failure in a scientific field could be the claims of a nuclear winter brought on by multiple nuclear explosions, made by Carl Sagan and additional co-authors in 1983. It was pointed out by atmospheric scientists that his conclusion didn’t actually account for all the factors which would affect the outcome of this, such as how high dust would have to reach to be unaffected by rainfall and thus reducing the cloud cover, and in turn the level of chilling caused. (Nuclear Winter of our Discontent http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featblunders). Errors in the early research, such as a lacking understanding of the atmosphere and its factors, lead to an incorrect conclusion on the part of the researchers which needed to be pointed out by others.
RES701 Journal 