Final Exam (Week 11-13)

Question 1

What is KT?

Answer 1

Knowledge translation
Sharing findings, insights, experiences
Process that involves synthesis, dissemination, exchange, and application of knowledge
aka knowledge mobilization or knowledge sharing

Question 2

What is a knowledge user?

Answer 2

Anyone who can take knowledge from research and use it to make informed decisions. Can be:
Decision makers (e.g., policy makers, governments)
Practitioners (e.g., educators, physicians)
Individuals (e.g., general public, patients, athletes)

Question 3

What does a knowledge user make decisions about?

Answer 3

policies, programs, or practices

Question 4

What are the categories of people that are involved in KT?

Answer 4

Researchers, policy makers, caregivers, providers, persons with lived experience, other stakeholders
All are trying to reach each other

Question 5

Core elements of KT?

Answer 5

Synthesis
Dissemination
Exchange
Ethically sound application of knowledge
Overlap exists, but all are integral to KT process

Question 6

What is synthesis (KT)?

Answer 6

Contextualizing/integrating/situating study findings within larger body of knowledge (ex. systematic reviews, narrative reviews, meta analyses, practical guidelines)
Basically figuring out where results fit in the context of the field

Question 7

What is dissemination (KT)?

Answer 7

Tailoring KT to a particular audience (both the message and the medium of info) (ex. providing summaries for knowledge users, delivering educational sessions with parents and athletes)
Basically condensing info into a more palatable medium for the intended audience, figure out what they NEED to understand

Question 8

What is exchange (KT)?

Answer 8

Engagement between researchers and knowledge users
Results in mutual learning through planning, producing, disseminating, and applying existing or new research
Very important step
Basically passing knowledge between people

Question 9

What is ethically sound application of knowledge (KT)?

Answer 9

Putting knowledge into practice
Should be consistent with ethical principles, social values, and legal regulatory frameworks
Basically actually using the knowledge

Question 10

What are the ways of planning timing of KT activities?

Answer 10

End-of-project: Activities occur at the end of research study (sharing a finished product)
Ex. published journal articles, conference presentations, etc.
Integrated: Activities integrated throughout duration of research study (share as you go)

Question 11

Traditional vs. Innovative KT strategies examples?

Answer 11

Traditional:
- Publications (journal articles, guidelines, manuals, reports)
- Conference presentations (verbal presentations, poster presentations, symposia)
Innovative:
- Text-based (stories, narratives, fictional narratives, poems)
- Media-based (social media, websites, online tools, TED talks, 3 min thesis competitions)
- Arts-based (short film, interpretive dance, ethnodrama, visual art, musical performances)
Relationship-oriented (community engagement, gatherings)

Question 12

How to select KT strategies?

Answer 12

should be driven primarily by research question and the intended audience
Should also be ethically sound

Question 13

Why is KT important?

Answer 13

Same reason why we care about research, adds to knowledge about a problem
Relevance to practice:
- Improving services
- Applying new knowledge
- Answer questions
- Critically think

Question 14

4 Strategies for improving knowledge exchange?

Answer 14

Co-production: Scientist and decision-maker are working together side-by-side, some overlap
Embedding: Scientist is either embedded in a decision-maker context or vice-versa, one is working within the other and learning
Knowledge broker: Scientist is working mostly separately, intermediary is within scientific context. Scientist and intermediary are both equally (very little) directly connected to decision-maker
Boundary organization: Intermediary is working between scientist and decision-maker and is the communication boundary, no direct connection between scientist and decision-maker

Question 15

What is the information explosion?

Answer 15

Number of articles skyrocketed after WWII because of research about and during the war
Millions of articles published, used to be specialized people doing literature reviews and people knew most others in their field, now too many to keep up with

Question 16

What are research reviews?

Answer 16

Provides the context where we can evaluate the merits of a study
Two types:
Non-systematic (narrative, integrative)
Systematic (meta-analysis, scoping review, meta-synthesis)

Question 17

Criticism of narrative reviews?

Answer 17

Narrative review: type of non-systematic review
- Subjective
- Scientifically unsound
- An inefficient way to extract useful information
Basically no guarantee that two scientists will come to the same conclusion

Question 18

What is a systematic review?

Answer 18

Follows a methodologically rigorous process that is
transparent and replicable to minimize bias
Identifies relevant studies, checks quality, and summarizes results using scientific methodology
Can be qualitative or quantitative, addresses some criticism of narrative reviews

Question 19

What does a systematic review need?

Answer 19

• A predefined protocol and structured research strategy that is available to anyone (replicatable)
• Clear outlined procedure of how articles were selected and exclusion-inclusion criteria
• If there was a quality check of individual studies, and if not, why
• Structured process for taking and summarizing results (replicatable)
• Discussion of what we found, and of our own limitations and contributions from review

Question 20

Key components of a systematic review?

Answer 20

Articulate research question (PICO = participants, interventions, comparisons and outcomes)
Clear description of protocol (PRISMA = preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses)
Register the review and protocol (PROSPERO is an international database of prospectively registered systematic reviews where there is a health-related outcome)
Description of how the strength of evidence will be assessed (GRADE = grading of recommendations, assessment, development and evaluations)

Question 21

Flow chart of PRISMA would include:

Answer 21

Identification - of all possible related articles through whatever database you’re searching (and then record the number after duplicates are removed, bound to be doubles in there)
Screening - actually read through the titles and abstracts to see if they really are related to the research question
Eligibility - read through the article itself, and see if they fit what you’re trying to assess, be sure to record why something was excluded and categorize them!
Included - the number of studies actually used
RECORD EVERYTHING so if someone tries to challenge your numbers, there’s a defence lined up to protect your findings

Question 22

Grade certainty ratings

Answer 22

Very low - Actual effect is probably markedly
different from the research findings
Low - Actual effect might be markedly
different from the research findings
Moderate - We believe that the actual effect is probably close to the research findings
High - We have a lot of confidence that
the actual effect is similar to the research findings

Question 23

What is a meta-analysis?

Answer 23

The statistical integration of the results of independent studies
A collection of systematic techniques for resolving apparent contradictions in research findings
Can only be done with quantitative research

Question 24

Why do we conduct meta-analyses?

Answer 24

Too much info/literature
- Contradictions
- Narrative reviews aren’t efficient
Need to know population effect
Hard to determine relationship(s) b/w IV’s and DV’s across studies

Question 25

Steps to a meta-analysis

Answer 25

Systematic review of literature, which includes:
- Problem specification (identify question(s) we are addressing)
- Literature search (exhaustive comprehensive searching, inclusion criteria)
- Retrieving studies
- Coding studies
- Data extraction (quantitative data converted to effect size)
- Data analyses and interpretation (putting data into context)

Question 26

What is effect size?

Answer 26

Measure of the strength of a relation
An estimate of the degree a phenomenon is present in a population and/ or the extent to which the null hypothesis is false (extent of something different actually happening)
Basically the magnitude of the effect or relationship
We use it to represent study findings in a meta- analysis (BUT type of ES must be the same across all studies)

Question 27

Calculating/estimating effect sizes

Answer 27

If we know the sample size, we can calculate/estimate ES from many different types of descriptive (means & SD, r) and inferential statistics (e.g., OR, F, t, p)
d = (Me - Mc)/sdc
d = (Me1 - Me2) - (Mc1 - Mc2)/sdpooled
Or
Pearson r (convert r to Fisher’s Z)

Question 28

Limits of meta-analyses?

Answer 28

Applies only to quantitative findings (descriptive or inferential)
Findings must be conceptually comparable, and, configured in similar statistical forms
Studies should include similar research designs

Question 29

Which PW do most mixed-methods resesarchers usually hold?

Answer 29

Pragmatism
Focused on solutions, no commitment to any single notion of reality, application-focused

Question 30

Forms of data collection/generation, analysis, and interpretation in mixed methods studies (remember the chart)

Answer 30

Both predetermined and emerging methods, open and closed-ended questions, multiple forms of data drawing on all possibilities, statistical and text analysis, interpretation of many databases (stats and themes)

Question 31

When is a mixed-methods study appropriate?

Answer 31

Driven by research question
Some lend themselves to:
Breadth = qualitative design
Depth = quantitative design
Both = mixed methods
REMEMBER mixing methods just for the sake of it can produce disjointed and unfocussed research

Question 32

Decisions to make when planning mixed methods research

Answer 32

Implementation sequence (concurrent or sequential)
Priority/weighting (more qual, quant, or equal weight)
When to integrate components (data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, KT)

Question 33

Considerations for implementation sequence

Answer 33

Timing of components
Concurrent = data collected at the same time
- Concurrent nested designs = one method dominates while the other is embedded within it
Sequential = two distinct phases

Question 34

Considerations for priority/weighting

Answer 34

More qualitative, quantitative, or equal weighting to both)

Question 35

Considerations for Integration

Answer 35

When we actually mix the two together (data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, KT)
Depends on research question and initial research planning
Side-by-side comparison: merging/converging data during analysis
Independent analysis: may need findings from one phase to plan the next, qual and quant data analyzed separately/independently
Data transformation: converting one form of data to another, qualitizing (use numerical data to describe sample or quantizing data (count codes/themes)

Question 36

What is an explanatory sequential mixed methods design?

Answer 36

Quantitative data collected first–>qualitative data collected in the second phase
- Used more often by quantitative researchers
EXPLAINING - sciencey

Question 37

What is an exploratory sequential mixed methods design?

Answer 37

Qualitative data collected first–>quantitative data collected in the second phase
- Used when developing a measurement tool, usually uses different samples
EXPLORE - fun and abstract

Question 38

Benefits of mixed methods research

Answer 38

• Neutralizing weaknesses and maximizing strengths of designs
• Triangulation (using many methods to get a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon)
• Comprehensiveness
• Instrument development and testing
• Assisting sampling (quant can assist with purposeful sampling for subsequent qual study)
• Enhancing generalization (quant methods can enhance transferability to qual findings)

Question 39

Challenges of mixed methods research

Answer 39

• Blending PW
• Bringing together diverse researchers
• Timelines and resources
• Sampling and analysis decisions (potential of burdening participants)
• Publication and evaluation (determining quality of study)
  More complex and difficult than qual or quant on their own!!

Question 40

What are the key defining features of pragmatism?

Answer 40

Consequences of actions: knowledge arises from actions, situations, consequences
Problem-centered: research problem takes top priority, including over methods and issues of knowledge
Pluralistic: many approaches used to derive knowledge
Real-world practice oriented
Researchers working together on mixed-methods research have to adapt to a pragmatist WV, even if it means compromising some characteristics of their own PW

Question 41

Is mixed methods research just getting qualitative and quantitative data and putting them together?

Answer 41

No! It’s more than analyzing them separately, there has to be a MIXING of some sort
Must be systematic and purposeful
The overall strength is greater than either quant or qual (ONLY if the question lends itself to mixed methods)

Question 42

Skills of a researcher doing mixed-methods study

Answer 42

Past research experience (in both qual and quant studies, and mixed methods), training, skills, education, PW (pragmatism training or at least compromise)
Rare to see solo researcher doing MM study, so usually research teams with qual and quant researchers (specialists) and someone who can bridge the gap like a pragmatist or someone with MM experience, individuals with diverse research experiences