Unit 4 research in health and social care Flashcards
\How accurate results of research are to real life
Validity
How well results can be repeated or replicated under the same conditions
reliability
Purposes of research:
- Improve outcomes for people using services
2.inform policy and practice
3.Extend knowledge and understanding
4.identify gaps in provision
Improve outcomes for people using services:
Using research to help improve services allows researchers to understand the needs of professionals, service users etc and allows them to experiment ideas to see how it works. It allows improvement for lifestyles, having better lifestyles through understanding and researching how poor lifestyle affects health.
Inform policy and practice
Research allows to understand strengths and weaknesses in current practice and experiment changes in practice to see what works and what improves practice and outcomes
Extend knowledge and understanding
Allows a deeper understanding of health, ill health, treatment and practice
Identify gaps in provision
Research allows us to identify where improvements are needed
Research Methods
1.Questionnaires
2.interviews
3. Scientific experiments
4. case studies
5. Observations
Questionnaires
Advantages: Easy and quick to produce, data normally reliable (researchers can check findings and repeat the research), Easier for people to respond (less time consuming, can do whenever they can which may increase respondent rate), better for people that don’t have lots of resources.quantitative and qualitative data can be collected
Disadvantages: limited choice of answer, respondents cant explain their response more, meaning of questions may be unclear, these factors may decrease the validity.
interviews
Advantages: enable more in depth answers, normally have good reliability, researcher can assess the persons body language etc and detect when someone may be lying. Validity could be better too due to the fact that more in depth answers can be given.
Disadvantages: more time consuming, expensive, may not useful if the researcher is on a time limit.
Scientific experiments
Advantages: reliable, variables can be manipulated and changed for the use of the experiment, can be inexpensive sometimes
disadvantage: can be difficult with limited resources, variables being changed can lower validity, and the environment is sometimes artificial lowering the validity.
case studies
Advantages: allows in depth insights and allows an understanding for complex situations. Allows researcher to explore possible variables in real life settings that may difficult to explore using other methods
Disadvantages: Findings might not be applicable to different contexts. Poor reliability because replicating case studies is unlikely, lack validity because findings might not be applicable to some contexts making it less accurate to real life
Observations
Advantages: Does not require technical skills making it easy. offers high validity if the participant doesn’t know they are being observed because they won’t change the behavior.
Disadvantages: expensive, time consuming,researcher rely on documents that might not be accurate sometimes which can lower validity. feelings and opinions aren’t observed. Difficult to replicate observation.
Sample methods
Random sampling
Stratified sampling
Volunteer sampling
Opportunity sampling
Random sampling
Every member of a population has an equal chance of being selected. It provides more chance of an unbiased sample increasing the validity. However for large populations it is time consuming. Reliability depends on size of sample, smaller sample would lower reliability and conclusions drawn from research would have lower reliability. Bigger sample = higher reliability.
Stratified sampling
Diving the target population into subcategories and selecting members in proportion that they occur in population. Effort is made to make the sample representative of the target population. it can be time consuming. Sample is more representative of the population which means reliability and validity is higher.
volunteer sampling
Individuals choose to participate in a study. Ethical, because it leads to informed consent. Also fairly convenient. unrepresentative as it leads to bias on the part of the participant. for example, a social media advert wouldn’t attract many elderly people. This means reliability and validity is low
opportunity sampling
Selecting people that are available at the time. using whats available to the researcher at the time.Quick, convenient. Very unrepresentative and often biased. which lowers reliability and validity of the research.
Primary data
first hand data gathered by the research themself.
Secondary data
Data collected by someone else earlier for example using information from an article.
Quantitative data
Data that can be counted or measured in numerical values
Qualitative data
data representing information and concepts that are not represented by numbers
Ethical considerations
Informed consent
maintain confidentiality
Avoid deception
Avoid conflicts of interest
Protect participants from harm
provide the right to withdraw
Informed consent
This means that the researcher has to provide participants with all information about risks, benefits, alternatives etc before someone can consent. This empowers the participants and means they are protected from harm. It is not always possible for people to give informed consent if they don’t have mental capacity. It is upheld by the researcher risk assessing all risks and researching benefits etc before a participant consents.
maintain confidentiality
Keeping participants sensitive and identifiable information private. benefits of upholding this ethical consideration is that participants will feel respected and their safety is maintained. limitations of maintaining confidentiality is that its time consuming being careful not to leak information. it is upheld by using a name alias and not using locations and the persons date of birth etc.
Avoid deception
Deception is giving false information. It is avoided through the use of informed consent. A benefit of avoiding deception is that it protects participants from harm. Limitations is that when using observations, participants will know which could cause them to lie if they know they are being watched affecting validity and reliability of the data.
Avoid conflicts of interest
this means the researcher removes them self from decision making processes that could cause conflict and also to reduce bias. benefits of this being upheld is that participants are protected from harm and reliability and validity is better because there’s less bias. Limitations is that it isn’t always possible. It is upheld by inviting a third party to make decisions
protect participants from harm
participants are protected from physical and emotional abuse. This can be upheld using confidentiality and informed consent. Benefits is that participants are safe and looked after. There are no limitations
provide the right to withdraw
This means participants can leave the study whenever they wish. limitations of this is that sampling and results may be affected by people leaving midway through the study. Benefits are that participants are empowered and safe. This can be upheld through the use of informed consent and ensuring all participants know they can withdraw whenever they wish.
