Briefly the Scientific Method (i.e. hypothesis-driven research) involves Observation, Hypothesis, Controlled Experiment and Conclusion. More specifically:
Initial Observations:
You notice something, and wonder why it happens. You see something and wonder what causes it. You want to know how or why something works. You ask questions about what you have observed. You want to investigate. The first step is to clearly write down exactly what you have observed.
Information Gathering:
Find out about what you want to investigate. Read books, magazines or ask professionals to learn about the effect or area of study. Keep track of where you got your information from.
Title the Project:
Choose a title that describes the effect or thing you are investigating. The title should be short and summarize what the investigation will deal with.
State the Purpose of the Project
What do you want to find out? Write a statement that describes what you want to do. Use your observations and questions to write the statement.
Identify Variables:
Based on your gathered information, make an educated guess about what types of things affect the system you are working with. Identifying variables is necessary before you can make a hypothesis.
Make Hypothesis:
When you think you know what variables may be involved, think about ways to change one at a time. If you change more than one at a time, you will not know what variable is causing your observation. Sometimes variables are linked and work together to cause something. At first, try to choose variables that you think act independently of each other. At this point, you are ready to translate your questions into hypothesis. A hypothesis is a question which has been reworded into a form that can be tested by an experiment.
Make a list of your answers to the questions you have. This can be a list of statements describing how or why you think the observed things work. These questions must be framed in terms of the variables you have identified. There is usually one hypothesis for each question you have. You must do at least one experiment to test each hypothesis. This is a very important step.
Design Experiments to Test Your Hypothesis
Design an experiment to test each hypothesis. Make a step-by-step list of what you will do to answer each question. This list is called an experimental procedure or specific aims.
Perform Experiments and Record Observations
Summarize Results
Summarize what happened. This can be in the form of a table of processed numerical data, or graphs. It could also be a written statement of what occurred during experiments. It is from calculations using recorded data that tables and graphs are made. Studying tables and graphs, we can see trends that tell us how different variables cause our observations. Based on these trends, we can draw conclusions about the system under study. These conclusions help us confirm or deny our original hypothesis.
Draw Conclusions
Using the trends in your experimental data and your experimental observations, try to answer your original questions. Is your hypothesis correct? Now is the time to pull together what happened, and assess the experiments you did. Other things you can mention in the conclusion
If your hypothesis is not correct, what could be the answer to your question?
Summarize any difficulties or problems you had doing the experiment.
Do you need to change the procedure and repeat your experiment?
What would you do different next time?
List other things you learned