A theory of scientific study

Abstract

This paper presents a theory of scientific study which is regarded as a social learning process of (working) scientific knowledge creation, revision, application, monitoring (e.g., confirmation) and dissemination (e.g., publication) with the aim of securing good quality, general, objective, testable and complete scientific knowledge of the domain. The theory stipulates the aim of scientific study that forms the basis of its principles. It also makes seven assumptions about scientific study and defines the major participating entities (i.e., scientists, scientific knowledge and enabling technical knowledge). It extends a recent process model of scientific study into a detailed interaction model as this process model already addresses many issues of philosophy of science. The detailed interaction model of scientific study provides a common template of scientific activities for developing logical (data) models in different scientific disciplines (for physical database implementation), or alternatively for developing (domain) ontologies of different scientific disciplines. Differences between research and scientific studies are discussed, and a possible way to develop a scientific theory of scientific study is described.