Ch 3: Critical Appraisal Flashcards
Preliminary understanding
Familiarizing self with content, skimming, deciding if article is applicable
Comprehensive understanding
Understanding researchers intent, identifying main theme and steps of research process
Analytical understanding
Understanding the parts of the study, developing a critique, determining level of evidence
Synthesis of understanding
Understanding the whole article and how it fits within cumulative body of knowledge, writing 1-page summary
Critical appraisal
An organized, systemic approach to evaluating a research study, using established critical appraisal criteria to objectively determine the strength, quality and consistency of evidence
Critical reading
An active, intellectually engaging process in which the reader participates in an inner dialogue with the writer
Critique
The process of critical appraisal in which a person evaluates the content of research for scientific validity/merit and applicability to practice
Reliability
Consistency of the measuring tool
Validity
Whether the measuring tool measures the correct phenomenon
Level I evidence
Values obtained from many studies with multiway sensitivity analysis
Ex. Systematic review, meta-analysis of RCT
Level II evidence
Values obtained from limited studies with multiway sensitivity analyses
Ex. RCTs
Level III evidence
Controlled trial without randomization, sampling limited to specific accessible population
Level IV evidence
Single, nonexperimental study
Ex. Case controlled, correlational, cohort
Level V evidence
Systematic reviews of descriptive and qualitative studies
Level VI evidence
Single descriptive or qualitative study
Meta analysis
Results of multiple studies in a specific area are examined, findings are synthesized to make a conclusion
Integrative review
Focused on a phenomenon of interest, more broad than systematic review, allows for diverse research including theoretical and methodological literature
Scoping review
Exploratory projects that systematically map the literature available, identifying key concepts, theories, gaps
Meta syntheses
Move beyond summaries and offer novel interpretations of findings from primary studies, mainly qualitative
