Ch 11 - Reasoning About the Design and Execution of Research Flashcards
What is the difference between the scientific and FINER method?
- scientific: series of 8 steps for the generation of new knowledge (hypothesis, testing, conclusion)
- FINER: assess the value of a research question on the basis of whether or not it is feasible, interesting, novel, ethical, and relevant
What are independent/dependent variables?
independent are manipulated and dependent have changes observed
What are positive/negative controls?
positive ensure change in dependent variable when expected, negative ensures no change
What is the difference between accuracy and precision?
accuracy (validity) is the quality of approximating the true value; precision (reliability) is the quality of being consistent in approximations
What are cohort, cross sectional, and case control studies?
- cohort record exposures throughout time and then assess the rate of a certain outcome
- cross assess both exposure and outcome at the same point in time
- case assess the outcome status and then assess for exposure history
What is Hill’s criteria?
- supports causality in observational studies
- only temporality (the exposure must occur before the outcome) is required for the relationship to be casual, but the more criteria are met, the more likely it is casual
- include temporality, strength, dose-response relationships, consistency, plausibility, consideration of alternative explanations, experiments, specificity, and coherence
What are selection and detection bias?
- selection: sample differs from population, is most common in human subject research
- detection: education professionals using their knowledge in an inconsistent way by searching for an outcome disproportionately in certain populations
What is the Hawthorne effect?
results from changes in behavior - by the subject, experimenter, or both - that occur as a result of the knowledge that the subject is being observed
What is confounding?
the error in data analysis that results from a common connection of both the dependent and independent variable to a third variable
What are the 4 principles of medical ethics?
beneficence, nonmaleficence, response for patient autonomy, and justice
What are the Belmont Report?
- respect for persons include autonomy, informed consent, and confidentiality
- justice dictates which study questions are worth pursuing and which subjects to use
- beneficence requires us to do the most good with the least harm (cannot perform an intervention without equipoise - a lack of knowledge about which arm of the research study is better for the subject)
What is considered a population?
all of the individuals who share a set of characteristics
- population data are called parameters
What is a considered a sample?
a subset of a population that are used to estimate population data
- sample data are called statistics
What is internal/external validity?
- internal refers to the identification of causality in a study between the independent and dependent variables
- external refers to the ability of a study to be generalized to the population that it describes
What is statistical and clinical significance?
needed in order for an intervention to be supported
- stat refers to the low likelihood of the experimental findings being due to chance
- clinical refers to the usefulness or importance of experimental findings to patient care or patient outcomes
