WEEK 5 - QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

Question 1

How and why is quantitative research done?

Question 2

What are the major quantitative research designs?

Question 3

What is the role of consistent and accurate measurement in quantitative research and healthcare?

Question 4

What are the two main types of quantitative research design?

Answer 4

• Intervention studies
• Observation studies

Question 5

What is an intervention study

Answer 5

• Researchers actively introduce or modify an intervention (such as a treatment, drug, or procedure) and measure its effects on outcomes. These studies are experimental because the researcher controls the exposure to the intervention.
• Experimental designs provide better evidence about causes and effects.
• A non‐experimental study that is also an intervention study is called a case series.

Question 6

What is an observation study

Answer 6

• There are no deliberate treatments. Researchers allow events to happen naturally.
• Conducted when interventions are impractical or unethical.
• These studies are non-experimental, relying on naturally occurring circumstances.

Question 7

What is descriptive research

Answer 7

• Describes a sample and compares groups within a sample on their characteristics or opinions.

Question 8

What is a diagnostic accuracy research

Answer 8

• Has looked for interesting and innovative ways to detect serious health conditions.

Question 9

Diagnostic Accuracy Research

Answer 9

• Purpose: To identify the cause or nature of a condition or disease.
• Example: A study to determine whether a new medical test can accurately detect a specific illness, like diagnosing diabetes with a new blood test.
• Goal: To assess the effectiveness or accuracy of a test or tool in identifying a problem

Question 10

Descriptive Research:

Answer 10

• Purpose: To describe characteristics or behaviors of a population or situation.
• Example: A study that reports how many people in a community have high blood pressure or describes their age, gender, and lifestyle habits.
• Goal: To provide a snapshot or detailed account of something without trying to explain causes or relationships.

Question 11

What are the 4 main levels of measurement

Answer 11

• nominal
• ordinal
• discrete
• ratio

Question 12

What is an independent variable

Answer 12

• refers to the treatment and control or placebo conditions.

Question 13

What is a dependent variable

Answer 13

• refers to the outcome measure, and could be categorical (e.g., patient’s condition improved or did not improve) or continuous (e.g., measures on a pain scale).

Question 14

What is reliability?

Answer 14

• refers to consistency over repeated measurements, getting the same result from multiple measurements of an unchanging category or amount.
• measurements taken from the same unchanging person or thing are stable over repeated observations.

Question 15

What are the 4 types of reliability?

Answer 15

Intra- rater
Inter rater
Te-retest
Alternate or Parallel forms

Question 16

Intra- rater

Answer 16

Repeated measurements by the same person

Question 17

Inter-rater

Answer 17

Measurements by at least two people

Question 18

Test- retest

Answer 18

repeated measurements over time. similar to intra-rater only with a larger time gap between measurements.

Question 19

Alternate or parallel

Answer 19

measurement instruments

Question 20

Two broad groups of data

Answer 20

• Qualitative
• Quantitative

Question 21

Nominal

Answer 21

• Observable, not measurable, e.g., gender, hair colour

Question 22

Ordinal

Answer 22

• Ranked in order from first to last, e.g., strongly agree, agree, strongly disagree

Question 23

Discrete

Answer 23

Relates to quantity (how many), e.g., time, temperature

Question 24

Ratio

Answer 24

Measured on a scale from zero to infinity, e.g., height, weight