Glossary of terms

Question 1

what does bias mean?

Answer 1

anything in the design or undertaking of the study that causes an untruth to occur in the study potentially affecting its outcome.

Question 2

what does single blind mean?

Answer 2

single blind: where the research participant does not know which arm of the study they are allocated to

Question 3

what does double blind mean?.

Answer 3

Double blind: where the research participant and researchers do not know which arm of the research the participant is allocated to.

Question 4

what is bracketing?

Answer 4

the process where the researcher puts their preconceptions about a topic to one side to allow them to explore the topic as if they were naive about it. This can be used in phenomenological research.

Question 5

what is another term for bracketing?

Answer 5

epoching

Question 6

what is causality?

Answer 6

cause and effect

Question 7

what is a closed question?

Answer 7

a question that allows for a limited response such as a yes or no answer. Example of a closed question: Do you like chocolate? Yes or no? Can be used as part of quantitative research.

Question 8

what does confounding mean?

Answer 8

Confounding variables are always independently associated with both the exposure and outcome being measured. For example an increased risk of pancreatic cancer is associated with smoking and coffee drinking, and smokers tend to drink more coffee than non-smokers.

Question 9

what does confounding mean?

Answer 9

Confounding variables are always independently associated with both the exposure and outcome being measured. For example an increased risk of pancreatic cancer is associated with smoking and coffee drinking, and smokers tend to drink more coffee than non-smokers.

Question 10

what does control arm mean?

Answer 10

the arm of a randomised controlled trial to which the intervention of the study is not applied. People in this arm of a randomised controlled trial are otherwise treated in the same way as people in the intervention arm. This allows the researchers to be sure the intervention being studied causes the outcome they are measuring.

Question 11

what does convenience sample mean?

Answer 11

sample taken from a set of individuals who are easily accessed.

Question 12

what does correlation mean?

Answer 12

a relationship between two variables. A positive correlation occurs in situations when a rise in the independent variable causes an increase in the dependant. A negative correlation occurs when a rise in the value of the independent variable causes a decrease in the dependant.

Question 13

what doe’s credibility mean?

Answer 13

a term used in qualitative research to suggest that the research undertaken answers what it was set out to answer because of the quality of the way in which the research has been done

Question 14

what does critical appraisal mean?

Answer 14

the structured and thoughtful examination of the quality of something.

Question 15

what is deductive?

Answer 15

research that sets out to prove an existing ideas or hypothesis. The research sets out to explore the truthfulness of the original idea

Question 16

what is data saturation?

Answer 16

the point during the data collection for a qualitative study at which no more new ideas or observations are emerging from the people being studied.

Question 17

what is a dependant variable?

Answer 17

the outcome variable of the study that occurs as a result of the independent variable having occurred.

Question 18

what is descriptive statistics?

Answer 18

statistics used to describe the frequencies and patterns of numbers within a dataset.

Question 19

what does emic mean?

Answer 19

taking the insider view-seeing the world from someone else’s point of view.

Question 20

what does empirical?

Answer 20

the notion of discovering new things using the senses or, in the case of research, different methods.

Question 21

what does epidemiology mean?

Answer 21

the study of diseases and their treatments from a population perspective.

Question 22

what does epistemology mean?

Answer 22

the philosophy of knowledge.

Question 23

what does equivalence study mean?

Answer 23

comparative studies that compare a new treatment to the current best treatment rather than a placebo

Question 24

what does ethnography mean?

Answer 24

the study of the cultures, beliefs and practice of a group.

Question 25

what does etic mean

Answer 25

the outsiders view of something.

Question 26

what does experimental mean?

Answer 26

a way of testing a hypothesis through comparison.

Question 27

what is a fixed cohort?

Answer 27

the name given to one of the groups in an experimental study recruited according to set criteria which are not changeable later in the study.

Question 28

what’s a gate keeper?

Answer 28

in the research sense, someone from within a group who helps a researcher gain access to the group in order to undertake a study.