Introduction Flashcards
What are the five ‘A’s’ strategy to ensure the use of research evidence in practice?
Ask - a clinical question
Acquire - information that may answer the question
Appraise - the evidence for its quality and applicability
Apply - the evidence in the care of the patient
Assess - whether the application resulted in the expected outcomes
What are the beliefs underpinning qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods research?
Qualitative - constructivism/interpretivism
Quantitative - positivism
Mixed-methods - pragmatism
List some advantages and disadvantages of qualitative research
Advantages:
- flexibility in thinking
- flexibility in the research process
- rich description
- compensation
- validity
Disadvantages:
- observer bias
- lack of consensus
- lack of focus
- lack of generalisability
- poor replication
- cost
List some advantages and disadvantages of quantitative research
Advantages:
- measurement
- rigour
- internal validity
- generalisability
- replicability
Disadvantages:
- the social world is different from the natural world and cannot be studied objectively in the same way
- measures used by positivist researchers are artificial
- measure responses at a single point in time
- positivist methods are less effective at determining why people act as they do
List some values of ethical conduct in research
- respect for human beings
- research merit and integrity
- justice
- beneficence
How is the principle of justice considered in the ethics of a research endeavour?
Check that:
- process of recruiting participants is fair
- that there is no unfair burden of participation in research on particular groups
- that there is fair distribution of the benefits of participation on research
- that there is no exploitation of participants in the conduct of the research
- there is fair access to benefits of research
How is the principle of beneficence considered in the ethics of a research endeavour?
The researchers are responsible for:
- designing the research to minimise the risks of harm or discomfort to participants
- clarifying for participants the potential benefits and risks of the research
- the welfare of the participants in the research context
List and briefly explain the three different types of basic mixed-methods designs.
- sequential explanatory - quantitative methods are followed by qualitative methods
- sequential exploratory - qualitative methods are followed by quantitative methods
- convergent/simultaneous/concurrent triangulation - using both qualitative and quantitative methods simultaneously to capture greater complexity in one study while focusing on different aspects
List some qualitative research designs
-in-depth interviews
- focus groups
- narrative research
- ethnography
- grounded theory
- phenomenology
What are the cyclical stages of a research project?
- identifying research problem
- developing research questions
- reviewing literature and theoretical framework
- selecting research methodology/method
- selecting research participants
- addressing ethical issues
- collecting data
- analysing and interpreting data
- writing up and disseminating research findings
- incorporating findings into evidence-based practice
What is the aim of observational studies, and what are the two most common types?
Aim to collect data about health outcomes that naturally occur within the population
- cross sectional
- longitudinal
What are cross sectional studies, and what are some advantages of this study design?
- conducted at a single point of time or over a limited time period
Advantages:
- relatively inexpensive and takes up little time to conduct
- can estimate prevalence of outcome of interest because sample is usually taken from the whole population
- many outcomes and risk factors can be assessed at the same time
- useful for public health planning, understanding disease aetiology and for the generation of hypothesis
- there is no loss to follow-up
What are the advantages of cohort studies:
- the temporal dimension, whereby exposure is seen to occur before outcome, gives some indication of causality
- can be used to study more than outcome
- well suited for the study of rare exposures
- can measure the change in exposure and outcome over time
- incidence of outcome can be measure
What are the types of variables?
- numeric
- categorical
What are types of numeric variables?
- discrete: whole numbers/units
- continuous: present some values between units
What are types of categorical variables?
- nominal: no natural order
- ordinal: rank-ordered and the values for describing the variable are sequentially assigned to represent the logical ordering of the categories
Compare interval and ratio scales of measurement
- variables on an interval scale represent values for which the interval between the values has meaning, and the distance between the different values in the scale is standard.
- variables in a ratio scale have the same characteristics as above, but additionally have a true zero point representing the absence of the variable measured
What are the four most common methods for drawing random sampling (i.e. probability sampling)?
- random sampling
- stratified random sampling
- disproportionate sampling
- cluster sampling
What are the four most common non-probability sample methods?
- convenience sampling
- quota sampling
- purposive sampling
- snowball sampling
What are some of the ground rules around sample size in quantitative research?
- the larger the sample size, the less the sampling error
- samples of diverse populations need to be larger than samples of homogeneous populations
- if only a few variables are examined, a smaller sample will be sufficient
What are some important skills to develop in interviewing?
- mindfulness
- cultivating a middle ground
- empathetic neutrality
- dynamic systems
What are some factors to consider when verifying the trustworthiness of data?
- credibility
- dependability
- confirmability
- transferability
What are some examples of enhancing rigour?
- reflexivity
- member checking
- peer review
- triangulation
What are some techniques to help facilitate optimal information-gathering from qualitative interviews?
- use open-ended questions
- be an active listener
- monitor your linguistic choices
- monitor the use of jargon
- assume that you do not know and act like you really do not
- pay attended to a participant’s silence
- avoid ‘testing’ the interviewee
- avoid leading questions
- avoid dichotomies
- ask ‘why’ but frame it right
- engage by using non-questioning responses
List the three different qualitative data analysis methods, and describe them briefly.
- Content analysis - applied to the content to identify concepts and categories, taking into consideration their frequency
- Thematic analysis - 6 steps: becoming familiar with the data, generating codes, generating themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes and locating exemplars
- Framework analysis - classifying and organising data according to key themes and concepts
How to ensure rigour in qualitative data?
- truth value
- consistency
- applicability
- confirmability
What are the three main aspects of distribution that are of interest
- location of variability
- spread of variability
- shape of variability
