The document provides an introduction to research methodology. It outlines the key steps in the research process as: (1) formulating the research question by identifying gaps in existing literature through a literature review; (2) developing hypotheses and objectives; and (3) preparing a research design that includes determining the sample, data collection methods, and data analysis plan. It also discusses important qualities of good research such as being controlled, rigorous, systematic, valid and verifiable.

1. INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY
Zeeshan Akhtar (M.Phil, B.Optom)
Asst Professor
Sushant School of Health Sciences

2. INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH
• Research is composed of re and search
• re is a prefix meaning again, anew or over again
• search is a verb meaning to examine closely and carefully, to test and try, or to
probe.
• scientific inquiry aimed at learning new facts & testing ideas
• Includes systematic collection, analysis & interpretation of data
• To generate new knowledge & answer a certain question or solve a problem

3. RESEARCH PROCESS GUIDELINES
• Formulating research query (problem)
• Extensive literature survey (review)
• Formulating hypothesis (Research Gap, AIM & OBJECTIVES)
• Research Design (Methodology)
• Sample criteria (Sampling technique)
• Data Collection
• Data Analysis
• Interpretation of Output
• Report Writing

4. QUALITIES OF GOOD RESEARCH
• CONTROLLED (affect of other factors on the outcome)
• RIGOROUS (Procedures followed are relevant, justified & appropriate)
• SYSTEMATIC (structured with logical sequence)
• VALID & VERIFIABLE (Output should be verified)
• EMPIRICAL (Conclusion based upon evidence)
• CRITICAL (must use appropriate methods)

5. RESEARCH FORMULATION (IDEA)
• Thought & IDEA
• Passion (To contribute)
• Through other researches
• Through clinical practice
• And should be beneficial to larger community

6. LITERATURE REVIEW
• To understand existing relevant research information
• Background & existing current knowledge
• Helps in developing conceptual framework
• Helpful in topic selection & refinement
• Helps in identify research gap and inconsistent findings
• Critical review of articles

7. STEPS IN LITERATURE
• Selecting a review topic
• Searching the literature
• Gathering, reading and analysing the literature
• Writing the review

8. LITERATURE SEARCH
• Computer & Electronic database
• CINAHL (Cumulative Index of Nursing Journals related to nursing and
health and Allied Health Literature) related publications
• Cochrane Library (Systematic reviews of the literature on medicine,
nursing and professions allied to health)
• Pubmed / MEDLINE A service of the National Library of Medicine and
additional life science journals
• Google Scholar
• Cross referencing

9. • Key words ( Most Common method)
• Good idea to consider alternative key words (e.g. Amblyopia/Lazy Eye)
• Another strategy is combining keywords. To help with these combinations
many databases use commands called‘Booleanoperators’.The most common
Boolean operators are
• ‘AND’,‘OR’and‘NOT’
• AND Look for articles that include all the identified keywords
• OR Look for articles that include any of the identified keywords
• NOT Exclude articles that contain this specific keyword
LITERATURE SEARCH CONT…

10. SOURCES OF LITERATURE
• Primary Source: Usually a report by the original researchers of a
study
• Secondary Source: Description or summary by somebody other than
the original researcher, e.g. a review article
• Conceptual/Theoretical: Papers concerned with description or analysis of
theories or concepts associated with the topic
• Anecdotal/Opinion/Clinical: Views or opinions about the subject that
are not research, review or theoretical in nature. Clinical may be case
studies or reports from clinical settings

11. AIM & OBJECTIVES (HYPOTHESIS FORMULATION)
• Identify Literature Gap
• Generate the hypothesis
• Define objectives
• Methods of Hypothesis testing

12. MATERIALS & METHODS
• Methods of testing
• STUDY Design
• Sample selection criteria (inclusion criteria)
• Sampling techniques
• Data Collection techniques
• Data handling
• BIAS
• Confounders

13. PREPARING A RESEARCH DESIGN

14. BIAS & CONFOUNDERS
• Systematic error
• Selection Bias
• Information Bias
• Interviewer Bias

15. SAMPLING TECHNIQUES

16. DATA COLLECTION
• DATA COLLECTION METHODS & TECHNIQUES
• TYPES OF DATA & VARIABLE
• DATA ANALYSIS (DATA HANDLING)

17. DATA COLLECTION METHODS
• Questionnaire
• Surveys
• Clinical data
• Interviews
• Observations

18. TYPES OF DATA

19. •Descriptive analysis
• Describing the data (Mean, Median, Mode)
•Inferential analysis
• Understanding comparison between variables or groups
• Testing hypothesis
DATA ANALYSIS

20. • Manual Calculations using statistical formulas
• Microsoft Excel
• Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS)
DATA ANALYSIS TOOLS
Parametric Tests Non Parametric tests
Paired t test Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test
Independent t test Mann Whitney U Test
One Way ANOVA Kruskal Wallis H Test
Repeated Measures ANOVA Friedman Test
Spearman Correlation Chi Sqaure
Linear Regression Logistics Regression

21. DATA INTERPRETATION
• Task to draw conclusion
• Requires statistical output understanding
• Explaining significance of output
• May trigger some new questions
• Based on hypothesis

22. REPORT WRITING
• In the form of thesis or manuscript
• It Contains
• Preliminary pages (Title, Acknowledgement, Abbreviations etc)
• Main body text (Introduction, methodology, result, discussion, conclusion)
• End of Report (appendices, references, bibliography)

23. Thank You

26. formulating the research problem;
• (2) extensive literature survey;
• (3) developing the hypothesis;
• (4) preparing the research design;
• (5) determining sample design;
• (6) collecting the data;
• (7) execution of the project;
• (8) analysis of data;
• (9) hypothesis testing;
• (10) generalisations and interpretation,
• (11) preparation of the report or presentation of the results ,i. e., formal
write-up of conclusions reached.
RESEARCH PROCESS GUIDELINES