Conducting research, whether in the lab or out in the field, is not something that you can just dive right into. The complexity of experiments and all their variables is one factor that makes preparation a necessity in research studies. Add in ethics and the rules, and it makes sense how not just anybody could become a researcher. Many people starting off have no idea what criteria should be met. Thankfully many researchers have made different acronyms or memorable phrases to help ensure new researchers know what to look for in their early plans. One of them being EMRN: Engagement, Mechanics, Reasoning, and Novelty.
Novelty, in this context, means coming up with an authentic plan that looks for deeper meanings in events. A great research study must come from an idea that is unique and significant to the subject matter. Conducting an experiment based on old ideas or unpopular ideas will not give people any reason to look at the results. This is most likely why many researchers would prefer to conduct fieldwork over lab experiments. Discoveries made on human patterns or interactions cannot always be found in a laboratory. Going out and talking to people is the best way to conduct a groundbreaking study.
For the Mechanics part of the EMRN criteria, a researcher must make sure their plan is understandable and without fault. However, these “faults” can be from many different causes. For example, one of the biggest changes to research in the 21st century is implementing rules for ethics. Which is good for not only the participants of research studies, but the researchers as well, since mistreating volunteers in a study could lead to a shift in the results. But what about the other people who are a part of the study, such as the testers? They are not mentioned a lot, but what if they did not have ethics protection? Those same errors from the participants could still happen with the testers. This is why researchers need to be thorough in looking for “faults” in their studies, because they could easily come from an unsuspected source.
Doing research for the first time is not easy. There will be challenges the person must overcome. But there are always resources to help early researchers. I know this from personal experience, I am soon to be conducting research for the first time too. Luckily, I know exactly where to go if I get lost.