In UX design, research is a fundamental part of solving relevant problems and/or reducing to the “right” problems that users face. A designer's job is to understand their users. This means going beyond initial assumptions to put yourself in other people's shoes to create products that meet human needs.
Good research doesn't just end in good data, it ends in good design and functionality that users love, want, and need.
Design research is often overlooked because designers focus on what design looks like. This leads to a superficial understanding of the people for whom it is intended. Having this kind of thinking is contrary to what it isUX. This is user-centricity.
UX design is centered around research to understand people's needs and how the products or services we create will help them.
Here are some research techniques that every designer should know when starting a project, and even if they don't do research, they can communicate better with UX researchers.
Primary Research
Primary research is essentially about finding new data to understand who you are designing for and what you are planning to design. This allows us to test our ideas with our users and develop more meaningful solutions for them. Designers typically collect such data through interviews with individuals or small groups, surveys, or questionnaires.
It's important to understand what you want to research before you stop searching for people, as well as the type or quality of data you want to collect. In an article from the University of Surrey, the author draws attention to two important points to consider when conducting primary research: validity and practicality.
Data validity refers to the truth, which is what it says about the subject or phenomenon being studied. It is possible for data to be reliable without being valid.
Practical aspects of the study should be carefully considered when designing the study, for example:
– cost and budget
– time and scale
– sample size
Bryman in his book Social Research Methods(2001) identifies four types of validity that can influence the results obtained:
- Measurement validity or construct validity: whether the measure being measured does what it claims to do.
That is, do church attendance statistics really measure the strength of religious belief?
- Internal validity: refers to causation and determines whether the conclusion of a study or theory is a developed true reflection of the causes.
That is, is it really unemployment that causes crime or are there other explanations?
- External validity: considers whether the results of a particular study can be generalized to other groups.
That is, if one type of community development approach is used in this region, will it have the same impact elsewhere?
- Environmental validity: considers whether “...social scientific findings are relevant to people's everyday natural environments” (Bryman, 2001)
That is, if a situation is observed in a false setting, how might this affect people's behavior?
Secondary Research
Secondary research uses existing data such as the Internet, books, or articles to support your design choices and the context behind your design. Secondary research is also used as a means to further validate information from primary research and build a stronger case for the overall design. Typically, secondary research has already summarized the analytical picture of existing research.
It's ok to only use secondary research to evaluate your design, but if you have time, I would definitely recommended doing primary research along with secondary research to really understand who you are developing for and collecting ideas that are more relevant and compelling than existing data. When you collect user data specific to your design, it will generate better ideas and a better product.
Evaluation studies
Evaluation studies describe a specific problem to ensure usability and ground it in the needs and wants of real people. One way to conduct evaluation research is for users to use your product and give them questions or tasks to think out loud as they try to complete the task. There are two types of evaluation studies: summative and formative.
Summative assessment study. Summative assessment aims to understand the results or effects of something. She emphasizes the result more than the process.
A summary study may evaluate things such as:
- Finance: Impact in terms of costs, savings, profits, etc.
- Impact: Broad effect, both positive and negative, including depth, spread and time factor.
- results: Whether desired or undesired effects are achieved.
- Secondary analysis: Analyze existing data to obtain additional information.
- Meta-analysis: integration of results from several studies.
Formative evaluation research. Formative assessment is used to help strengthen or improve the person or thing being tested.
Formative research may assess things such as:
- Implementation: Monitoring the success of a process or project.
- Needs: A look at the type and level of need.
- Potential: the ability to use information to form a goal.
Exploratory Research
Integrating pieces of data and making sense of them is part of the exploratory research process Exploratory research is conducted around a topic that little or no one knows about. The goal of exploratory research is to gain a deep understanding and familiarity with the topic by immersing yourself in it as much as possible to create direction for potential future use of the data.
With exploratory research, you have the opportunity to gain new ideas and create meaningful solutions to the problems that matter most.
Exploratory research allows us to confirm our assumptions about a topic that is often overlooked (i.e., incarcerated people, homelessness), providing the opportunity to generate new ideas and developments for existing problems or opportunities.
Based on an article from Lynn University, exploratory research tells us that:
- Design is a convenient way to obtain background information on a specific topic.
- Exploratory research is flexible and can address all types of research questions (what, why, how).
- Provides the ability to define new terms and clarify existing concepts.
- Exploratory research is often used to create formal hypotheses and develop more precise research problems.
- Exploratory research helps determine research priorities.
In UX design, research is a fundamental part of solving relevant problems and/or reducing to the “right” problems that users face. A designer's job is to understand their users. This means going beyond initial assumptions to put yourself in other people's shoes to create products that meet human needs.
Good research doesn't just end in good data, it ends in good design and functionality that users love, want, and need.
Design research is often overlooked because designers focus on what design looks like. This leads to a superficial understanding of the people for whom it is intended. Having this kind of thinking is contrary to what it isUX. This is user-centricity.
UX design is centered around research to understand people's needs and how the products or services we create will help them.
Here are some research techniques that every designer should know when starting a project, and even if they don't do research, they can communicate better with UX researchers.
Primary Research
Primary research is essentially about finding new data to understand who you are designing for and what you are planning to design. This allows us to test our ideas with our users and develop more meaningful solutions for them. Designers typically collect such data through interviews with individuals or small groups, surveys, or questionnaires.
It's important to understand what you want to research before you stop searching for people, as well as the type or quality of data you want to collect. In an article from the University of Surrey, the author draws attention to two important points to consider when conducting primary research: validity and practicality.
Data validity refers to the truth, which is what it says about the subject or phenomenon being studied. It is possible for data to be reliable without being valid.
Practical aspects of the study should be carefully considered when designing the study, for example:
– cost and budget
– time and scale
– sample size
Bryman in his book Social Research Methods(2001) identifies four types of validity that can influence the results obtained:
- Measurement validity or construct validity: whether the measure being measured does what it claims to do.
That is, do church attendance statistics really measure the strength of religious belief?
- Internal validity: refers to causation and determines whether the conclusion of a study or theory is a developed true reflection of the causes.
That is, is it really unemployment that causes crime or are there other explanations?
- External validity: considers whether the results of a particular study can be generalized to other groups.
That is, if one type of community development approach is used in this region, will it have the same impact elsewhere?
- Environmental validity: considers whether “...social scientific findings are relevant to people's everyday natural environments” (Bryman, 2001)
That is, if a situation is observed in a false setting, how might this affect people's behavior?
Secondary Research
Secondary research uses existing data such as the Internet, books, or articles to support your design choices and the context behind your design. Secondary research is also used as a means to further validate information from primary research and build a stronger case for the overall design. Typically, secondary research has already summarized the analytical picture of existing research.
It's ok to only use secondary research to evaluate your design, but if you have time, I would definitely recommended doing primary research along with secondary research to really understand who you are developing for and collecting ideas that are more relevant and compelling than existing data. When you collect user data specific to your design, it will generate better ideas and a better product.
Evaluation studies
Evaluation studies describe a specific problem to ensure usability and ground it in the needs and wants of real people. One way to conduct evaluation research is for users to use your product and give them questions or tasks to think out loud as they try to complete the task. There are two types of evaluation studies: summative and formative.
Summative assessment study. Summative assessment aims to understand the results or effects of something. She emphasizes the result more than the process.
A summary study may evaluate things such as:
- Finance: Impact in terms of costs, savings, profits, etc.
- Impact: Broad effect, both positive and negative, including depth, spread and time factor.
- results: Whether desired or undesired effects are achieved.
- Secondary analysis: Analyze existing data to obtain additional information.
- Meta-analysis: integration of results from several studies.
Formative evaluation research. Formative assessment is used to help strengthen or improve the person or thing being tested.
Formative research may assess things such as:
- Implementation: Monitoring the success of a process or project.
- Needs: A look at the type and level of need.
- Potential: the ability to use information to form a goal.
Exploratory Research
Integrating pieces of data and making sense of them is part of the exploratory research process Exploratory research is conducted around a topic that little or no one knows about. The goal of exploratory research is to gain a deep understanding and familiarity with the topic by immersing yourself in it as much as possible to create direction for potential future use of the data.
With exploratory research, you have the opportunity to gain new ideas and create meaningful solutions to the problems that matter most.
Exploratory research allows us to confirm our assumptions about a topic that is often overlooked (i.e., incarcerated people, homelessness), providing the opportunity to generate new ideas and developments for existing problems or opportunities.
Based on an article from Lynn University, exploratory research tells us that:
- Design is a convenient way to obtain background information on a specific topic.
- Exploratory research is flexible and can address all types of research questions (what, why, how).
- Provides the ability to define new terms and clarify existing concepts.
- Exploratory research is often used to create formal hypotheses and develop more precise research problems.
- Exploratory research helps determine research priorities.
Theoretical validation in sociological research: Methodology and methods
The very essence of mixed methods research is exploratory designs. Having gone almost all the way through the “Training Materials”, you are ready to receive this lesson.
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Research design is a combination of requirements regarding the collection and analysis of data necessary to achieve the objectives of the study. If we talk about information technology, then the corresponding research designs are related, first of all, to the features of the combinatorics of elements of qualitative and quantitative approaches within the framework of one study.
The main principles of organizing designs in information technology are: 1) awareness of the theoretical drive of the research project; 2) awareness of the role of borrowed components in a research project; 3) compliance with the methodological assumptions of the basic method; 4) working with the maximum available number of data sets. The first principle has to do with the purpose of the research (search vs confirmation), the appropriate types of scientific reasoning (induction vs deduction) and the appropriate methods in this case. According to the second principle, the researcher should pay attention not only to basic strategies for collecting and analyzing data, but also to additional ones that could enrich the main part of the research project with data that is important and cannot be obtained using basic methods. The third principle is related to the need to adhere to the fundamental requirements of working with data of one type or another. The essence of the last principle is quite obvious and has to do with attracting data from all available relevant sources.
Often IST is “situated” on a continuum between qualitative and quantitative research (see Figure 4.1). So, in the presented figure, zone “A” indicates the use of exclusively qualitative methods, zone “B” - mainly qualitative, with some quantitative components, zone “C” - equal use of qualitative and quantitative methods (fully integrated research), zone “D” - mostly quantitative with some qualitative components, zone “E” - exclusively quantitative methods.
Rice. Qualitative-mixed-quantitative continuum
If we talk about specific IST designs, there are two main typologies. One is suitable for cases where qualitative and quantitative methods are used at different stages of the same study, the other for cases where alternating or parallel qualitative and quantitative studies are used within a research project.
The first typology includes six mixed-type designs (see Table 4.2). An example of a study that uses qualitative and quantitative methods at different stages is concept alignment. In this research strategy, data collection is done using qualitative methods (e.g., brainstorming or focus groups) and analysis is quantitative (cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling). Depending on the tasks being solved (search or descriptive), it can be classified as either the second or sixth design.
According to the second typology, nine mixed-type designs can be distinguished (see Table 3). This typology is based on two main principles. First, in a mixed-type study, it is important to determine the status of each of the paradigms - whether qualitative and quantitative research have the same status, or whether one of them is considered as the main one, and the second - subordinate. Secondly, it is important to determine how the research will be conducted - in parallel or sequentially. In the case of a sequential solution, it is also necessary to determine which of them is first and which is second in the time dimension. An example of a research project that fits this typology would be a case where the first phase is a qualitative study to build theory (for example, using Anselm Strauss' grounded theory), and the second is a quantitative survey of a specific group of people, to to which the developed theory is applicable and in relation to which it is necessary to formulate a forecast for the development of the corresponding social phenomenon or problem.
Table 1. Mixed research designs using qualitative and quantitative methods within the same study*
Objectives of the study |
Data collection |
Data analysis |
|
Qualitative goals |
Qualitative data collection |
||
Quantitative data collection |
|||
Qualitative data collection |
Conducting quantitative analysis |
||
Quantitative data collection |
Conducting qualitative analysis |
||
Quantitative goals |
Qualitative data collection |
Conducting qualitative analysis |
|
Quantitative data collection |
Conducting quantitative analysis |
||
Qualitative data collection |
Conducting quantitative analysis |
||
Quantitative data collection |
Conducting qualitative analysis |
* in this table, designs 2-7 are of a mixed nature, design 1 is completely qualitative, design 8 is completely quantitative.
Table 2. Mixed-method research designs using qualitative and quantitative research as different phases of the same research project*
* “quality” means qualitative research, “quantity” means quantitative research; "+" - simultaneous research, "=>" - sequential; large letters indicate the main status of the paradigm, small letters indicate the subordinate status.
Of course, these typologies do not limit the variety of research designs, and they should be considered as possible guidelines in IST planning.
IST designs in evaluation research.
According to the typology of IST designs used in assessment, two main types can be distinguished - component and integrative. In component design, although qualitative and quantitative methods are used within the same study, they are used separately from each other. In integrative design, on the other hand, methods belonging to different paradigms are used together.
The component type includes three types of designs: triangulation, complementary and expansive. In a triangulation design, results obtained from one method are used to confirm results obtained from other methods. In the case of complementary design, the results obtained using the main method are specified and refined on the basis of the results obtained using methods of secondary importance. When using an expansive design, different methods are used to obtain information regarding different aspects of the assessment, that is, each method is responsible for a specific piece of information.
The integrative type includes four types of designs: iterative, nested, holistic and transformational. In iterative design, the results obtained from a method suggest or guide the use of other methods that are relevant to the situation. Untested design deals with situations where one method is integrated into another. Holistic design involves the combined, integrated use of qualitative and quantitative methods to comprehensively evaluate a program. Moreover, both groups of methods have equivalent status. Transformational design occurs when different methods are used together to capture values that are subsequently used to reconfigure dialogue in which participants hold different ideological positions.
Evidence-based medicine
Medical Research Design
Pivina L.M., Ph.D., assistant
Department of Internal Medicine No. 2
Previous Events
Declining infant mortality and rapid population growth
Changing the structure of morbidity from acute diseases to the predominance of chronic ones
Changing the etiological nature of diseases - from infectious agents to behavioral factors
The rapid development of medical science and the growth of medical technologies
Development of social insurance systems
What does evidence-based medicine mean?
“…conscientious, accurate, and meaningful use of the best clinical research findings to inform decisions about patient-specific care.”
- (Sackett D., Richardson W., Rosenberg W., Haynes R. Evidence-based medicine. How to practice and teach EBM. Churchill Livingstone, 1997.)
Evidence-based medicine concept
The goal of the concept of evidence-based medicine is to give doctors the opportunity to find and use scientifically based facts obtained in the course of correctly conducted clinical studies when making clinical decisions, and to increase the accuracy of predicting the outcomes of medical interventions.
The concept is based on two main ideas:
Every clinical decision by a physician must be made taking into account scientific evidence.
The weight of each fact is greater, the more rigorous the method of scientific research in which it was obtained.
Paltsev M.A. 2006
When did evidence-based medicine appear?
1940 - First randomized trials (use of streptomycin for tuberculosis)
1960 - thalidomide tragedy
1962 - The US Food and Drug Administration introduced regulations requiring controlled trials of new drugs.
1971 - Cochran raised the issue of insufficient scientific evidence
1980-90 - Raising awareness of the need to include systematic reviews in clinical guidelines
1994 - first Cochrane colloquium in Oxford
1994 - EBM term
1996 - Most British doctors already know the term EBM
1996 - The British Health Secretary stated that his main task was to promote the concept of EBM
1996 - EBM term in leading British newspaper headlines
1999 - BMJ publishes a guide to EBM (US circulation ½ million)
2001 – German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese editions
EBM was named after Archie Cochrane, an English epidemiologist who pointed out the need to evaluate the role of a specific clinical intervention using controlled clinical trials and store the results in a special database on the effectiveness of health care delivery.
He was the first to formulate the concept of evidence-based medicine.
Studies have shown that
for 2/3 of patients doctors
need information, but
receive it only in
a small number of cases. Where can I get the necessary information?
Observations show that in some domestic magazines up to ½ of the articles are of an advertising nature in content, design, or related to print advertising
To keep up with the times…….
“... a doctor needs to read 10 journals, approximately 70 original abstracts per month...”
Sackett D.L. (1985)
“...you need to read 15 articles 365 days a year...”
McCrory D.C. (2002)
The time available to a practitioner for reading is less than 1 hour per week.
The relationship between the practitioner and medical information
Information boom
Difficulties in finding reliable (“evidential”) information
Difficulties in analyzing information
Difficulty making effective clinical decisions
Medical errors
Prescribing unnecessary interventions
Justification for the need for regulation
In the US, 98,000 deaths per year from medical errors (IOM, 2000)
Only 30% of medical interventions with reliably proven effectiveness
Ineffective (and sometimes harmful) interventions are common
Not everyone in need receives interventions with proven effectiveness
Use of cocarboxylase, riboxin, asparkam
Parenteral administration of vitamins as an auxiliary treatment
Prescription of angioprotectors, absorbable drugs
Preventive administration of iron and folic acid to pregnant women– positive effect on the health of mother and newborn
Mammography for early detection of breast cancer
The influence of rehabilitation training programs on the outcomes of CAD in patients who suffered myocardial infarction over 3 years of rehabilitation (meta-analysis)
Components of quality health care (Haynes et al'96)
Clinical epidemiology
DM is based on clinical epidemiology is a branch of medicine that uses the epidemiological method to obtain medical information based only on strictly proven scientific facts, excluding the influence of systematic and random errors.
How scientific research makes us feel
FraminghamHeartStudy ( Framingham Study ) Massachusetts, under the auspices Heart, Lungand Blood
FraminghamHeartStudy ( Framingham Study ) a typical example of clinical epidemiology. This study began in 1948 to investigate cardiovascular health in Framingham, Massachusetts, under the auspices National Heart Institute (later renamed National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute: National Heart, Lungand Blood Institute; NHLBI). The study initially included 5,209 men and women. In 1971, it included 5,124 representatives of the second generation of participants - “offspring”. The researchers now plan to begin examining 3,500 grandchildren of those who entered the study more than 50 years ago—the “third generation.” The study has no equal in duration and size of the cohort, and its importance for modern medicine, and primarily cardiology, can hardly be overestimated. Over the years of careful observation of study participants, the main risk factors leading to diseases of the cardiovascular system were identified: high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, smoking, obesity, diabetes, etc. Since its inception, the study has resulted in nearly 1,200 articles published in the world's major medical journals.
Deviation from the norm Healthy or sick
Diagnosis How accurate are the methods?
Frequency How common is this disease?
Risk What factors are associated with an increased risk of disease?
Prognosis What are the consequences of the disease
Treatment How will the course of the disease change with treatment?
Prevention Are there methods to prevent the disease in healthy people? Does the course of the disease improve with early recognition and treatment?
Cause What factors lead to the disease?
Cost How much does this treatment cost?
diseases?
Frequency
Frequency
Risk
Forecast
Treatment
Prevention
Cause
Retrospective
Retrospective(retrospective study) – events that have already passed are assessed (for example, according to medical histories)
Prospective(prospective study) - first, a research plan is drawn up, the procedure for collecting and processing data is established, and then a study is conducted according to this plan.
Classification of research by design
1. Observational studies (studies - observations)
one or more groups of patients are described and observed for certain characteristics
2. Experimental studies
the results of an intervention (drug, procedure, treatment, etc.) are evaluated and one, two or more groups are involved. The subject of research is observed
Classification of scientific clinical trials
Research structure
By time:
Cross-sectional studies
Longitudinal studies
Longitudinal studies
Description of cases
Descriptive Reviews– the most “read” scientific publications that reflect the author’s position on a specific issue
Most often the medical history of a single patient is presented.
One way to understand complex clinical situations
But has no scientific evidence
Case series and clinical cases
Types of Observational Studies Case series or descriptive study
A case series is a study of the same intervention in individual consecutive patients without a control group.
For example, a vascular surgeon might describe the results of carotid artery revascularization in 100 patients with cerebral ischemia.
Types of observational studies Case series or descriptive study, features
describes a number of characteristics of interest in observed small groups of patients
relatively short study period
does not include any research hypotheses
has no control groups
precedes other studies
this type of study is limited to data on individual patients
Case control study
A study designed to compare two groups of participants who did and did not develop a clinical outcome (usually an unfavorable one) to identify differences in the influence of certain risk factors on the development of that clinical outcome.
This study design is most suitable when trying to determine the cause of rare diseases, for example, the development of central nervous system disorders in children after the use of pertussis vaccine.
Occasions:
Occasions: presence of disease or outcome
Control: absence of disease or outcome
Possible causes or risk factors for disease are assessed retrospectively, but are not historical controls
Answers the question “What happened?”
Longitudinal or Longitudinal Study
Case-control studies
Design
Advantages and disadvantages Case-control
Advantages
- Best Design for Rare Diseases or Conditions Requiring Long Time Intervals
- Used to test primary hypotheses
- Very short term
- Least expensive
Flaws
- Large number of biases and systematic errors
- Depends on the quality of primary descriptions and measurements
- Difficulties in selecting an appropriate control group
A study whose design allows you to follow a group (cohort) of participants and identify differences in the incidence of certain clinical outcomes among them.
A group of patients is selected for a similar symptom, which will be followed in the future
Begins with an assumption of a risk factor or outcome
Exposed to RF and Unexposed
Prospective over time, determination of the sought factors in the exposed group
Answers the question “Will people get sick if they are exposed to a risk factor?”
Mostly prospective, but there are also historical cohort (retrospective)
Design
Design
Advantages and Disadvantages of Cohort Trials
Advantages
- Better designs for studying the causes of conditions, diseases, risk factors and outcomes.
- Enough time to obtain rigorous evidence
- Many systematic errors can be avoided (occur if the outcome is known in advance)
- Allows assessment of the relationship between exposure to a risk factor and several diseases
Flaws
- Longitudinal
- Expensive (studies of more people)
- Allows assessment of the relationship between a disease and exposure to a relatively small number of factors (those that were identified at the beginning of the study)
- Cannot be used for rare diseases (sample size must be larger than the number of individuals with the disease being studied)
Types of observational (descriptive) studies Cross-sectional study (prevalence)
Data is collected at a specific point in time
Types:
- Disease prevalence or outcome
- Study of the course of the disease, stages
They answer the question “How much?”
Prevalence studies
Design
TERMINOLOGY
Prevalence– prevalence. Example: prevalence of IHD in the population, number of people with IHD/total population as a percentage.
Incident– primary morbidity. Example: incident of bronchial asthma in children of Semey = number of new cases of asthma in children of Semey / number of children living in Semey.
The higher the incidence (I) and the longer the disease or condition, the higher the prevalence (P)
P = I x L
RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL (RCT) (Controlled Clinical Trials (CCT))
- GOLD STANDARD FOR ANY DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT METHOD.
Typically, this is a study in which participants are randomly assigned to two groups - a study group (which receives the intervention being studied) and a control group (which receives a placebo or another intervention. This study design allows the effectiveness of the interventions to be compared.
Diagram of a typical RCT
Design
Design
Placebo control
Placebo control
Active treatment
Comparative characteristics of doses
Flaws
Flaws
- often takes a long time
- Very expensive
- Not suitable for rare diseases
- Limited generalizability
Advantages
- the best data for patients
- less bias (systematic error)
- best for evaluating effectiveness and testing interventions
- If randomized, the most rigorous in design and reliable
Development of the Study Protocol
A clinical trial protocol (program) is a document that contains instructions for everyone taking part in a clinical trial, with specific tasks for each participant and instructions for completing those tasks.
The protocol ensures qualified research, as well as the collection and analysis of data, which is then submitted for review to the authorities of the control and licensing system.
Development of an Individual Registration Card
The Individual Record Card (IRC) is a means of collecting data from a paper-based study conducted at a research site. Some studies also use electronic means for these purposes.
In the first stage (phase 1) of a clinical trial, researchers study a new drug or treatment in a small group of people (20-80 people) to first determine its safety, establish a range of safe doses, and identify side effects.
In the second stage (Phase II), the drug or treatment being studied is given to a larger group of people (100-300 people) to see if it is effective and to further test its safety.
Stages (phases) of a clinical trial
In the third stage (phase III), the drug or treatment being studied is prescribed to even larger groups of people (1000-3000 people) to confirm effectiveness and safety, monitor side effects, and also for comparison with commonly used drugs and treatments, accumulating information that will allow It is safe to use this medicine or treatment.
The fourth stage (phase IV) of research is carried out after the medicine or treatment method has been approved for use by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan. These studies continue testing the drug or treatment being studied to further gather information about its effects on different groups of people and to identify any side effects that occur with long-term use.
A review is a serious scientific study that clearly states the question being studied, detailing the methods used to find, select, evaluate, and summarize the results of various studies relevant to the question being studied. Systematic analysis may include meta-analysis (but is not required).
Meta-analysis
Summarizing the results of several studies on the same topic
Mainly compiled from systematic reviews. A method of statistical analysis that combines the results of several studies and presents the resulting score as a single weighted score (with larger weights usually given to larger studies or studies of higher methodological quality).
Medical Research Design Conclusions
RCT– maximum in strength, but often expensive and time-consuming
Well prepared observational studies give good results in identifying the causes of diseases, but are not sufficiently conclusive
Cohort studies– best for studying the course of diseases and identifying risk factors
Case-control studies fast and inexpensive
Selection of research methodology
Quantitative research: designed to answer the questions: “How much” and “What quantity?” Aimed at identifying relationships, usually cause-and-effect relationships, between variables.
Collection of information on the problem of interest and mathematical analysis of the obtained quantitative data.
The goal is to identify general patterns that are characteristic not only of the examined group of people, but also of the entire population as a whole, which will allow the researcher to interpret the problem and make predictions.
Qualitative research
Designed to answer the questions: “Who? Why? When? and where?" and is aimed at a deeper study of the problem.
The problem is considered from different points of view.
The purpose of the study is to reveal the principles (patterns) characteristic of the population under study, according to which the phenomena of interest to us occur and which will allow us to provide a deeper understanding of the problem.
Qualitative research
Data collection methods:
Quantitative
Tests and various measurement methods
Questionnaires
Formalized data collection
The important elements are:
- Presence of a control group
- Randomization
Analysis of the received data
Quantitative
Statistics
Reliability of evidence
