What you need to get started

1. Principles of research
Roger Watson

2. The basic equipment for research
• Passion
• Vision
• Patience
• Enthusiasm

3. The typology of researchers
• Starters versus finishers

4. See the ‘gap in the wall’

5. Know how to fill the gap

6. Developing a project
• Barriers
– Research based practice or practice based research?
– Lack of focus
– Wanting to change the world
– But which bit will you change
– Setting out to ‘prove’ something
• You may be wrong!

7. What if you have an idea…
• …but don’t know what to do?
• You’re not alone
• Get help from an expert...
– …a nice one!
• BEWARE of

8. The research project
• What will you do?
– Research question/aims
• Why will you do it?
– Background literature and gaps to be filled
• How will you do it?
– Design and methods
• How will you know that you’ve done it?
– Analysis
• Reporting
– The job’s not done until it’s written up

9. Developing a research question
A clear statement in the form of a question of what you set out
to investigate, eg:
• Are practice nurses better than GPs at removing ear wax?
• Does continuing professional development improve nurses’
management skills?
• Why do older nurses leave the profession?

10. Research design
• Quantitative
– Randomised controlled trials
– Surveys
• Cross-sectional
• Longitudinal
• Qualitative
– Ethnography
– Grounded theory

11. Research methods
• Quantitative
– Randomised controlled trials
• Define primary outcome measure and data collection method
• How will randomisation be achieved?
• How will blinding be assured?
• How was sample size calculated?

12. Research methods (contd.)
• Quantitative (contd.)
– Surveys
• Questionnaires
– Postal
– Telephone
– internet
• Observations
• Sample size considerations
• Sampling procedures

13. Research methods (contd.)
• Qualitative
– Interviews
– Focus groups
• Recording
• Transcribing

14. Pilot studies

15. Analysis
• Quantitative
– Descriptive
– Inferential
– Multivariate
• Qualitative
– Thematic analysis
– Phenomenology

16. Reporting
• The four rules of writing
– Read the guidelines
– Write to targets (and count words)
– Seek criticism
– Treat a rejection as the start of the next submission

17. Research
project

18. r.watson@hull.ac.uk
0000-0001-8040-7625
@rwatson1955