Lecture 1 Flashcards
Define critical thinking
- A self-guided, self-disciplined ability to effectively analyse information and form a judgement.
- Must be aware of own bias and assumptions
Explain why research is important
- Answers questions –
satisfy curiosity - Informs healthcare investigations (assessment), diagnosis and treatment. Health promotion and disease prevention
- Better decision
-making processes - What works, what doesn’t work – and what might work!
- What’s economical (cost-effective)
- Improve delivery of services (policies)
- Support advocacy efforts (scope expansion, increase in third party insurance coverage)
- What’s safe: Identifies risk factors, side-effects (or unintended effects)
Hypothesis
Proposed explanation (guess) made on the bias of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
Theory
An idea that is intended to explain facts or events.
Empirical Evidence
Information obtained through observation and documentations of certain behaviours
Research evidence
Evidence that has been vetted through scientific community.
Scientific Evidence
Information collected by rigorous methods that either supports or challenges a scientific theory.
Sensitivity
Ability of a test to identify an individual with a disease (few false negatives)
Specificity
Ability of a test to identify an individual without the disease (few false positives)
Predictive Value
Ratio of patients truly diagnosed as positive to all those who had positive test results.
Deductive:
Begins with a theory, support it by observation, and apply it to specifics (from general to specific)
Inductive:
Begins with an observation and arrives at a hypothesis or theory (from specific to general)
Abductive reasoning:
Making a probable conclusion from what you know
Epidemiology:
Branch of medicine that deals with incidence, distribution and possible control of disease.
Epistemology:
Theory of knowledge and how knowledge is gathered and from what sources.
Phenomenology:
A qualative approach that emphasizes lived experiences, perception and behaviours.
Red herring
Irrelevant point
Ethnography:
Qualitative approach that collects and analyzes data in the social and behavioural sciences.
Ad Hominen
Attack the person, not the arguement.
Equivocation
Confuse listner by using word with multiple meanings
Straw man
Argue against a hyperbolic inaccurate version of other
Hasty Generalisation/Texas Sharpshooter
A few examples mean all
Slippery Slope
One vent leads to chain of events
Appeal to authority
Claim of expert
False Dilemma/Dichotomy
Only two extreme opinions
Bandwagon
Argumentum ad populum
No true Scotsman/Appeal to purity
Protects argument by generalised statement by refusing to acknowledge
Circular argument
Same statement as both premise and conclusion.
Sunk Cost
Phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it.
Appeal to pity
A manipulative tactic that uses a persons emotions to gain support for a claim.
Casual fallacy
Umbrellas cause it to rain
Appeal to hypocrisy/tu quoque
Reactive criticism.
Examples of historical milestones in research
- Mathematics
- Chemistry
- Astronomy
- Teaching
- Cartography
- Healing arts
- Writing
What is face validity?
Extent to which a test appears to measure what it claims to measure
