The document outlines the key steps in conducting research:
1) Choosing a topic of interest and reviewing relevant literature to form a research question and hypothesis.
2) Developing a research design that determines how data will be collected, such as through qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods.
3) Implementing the study by collecting and analyzing data, then preparing and publishing a report of the findings. The goal is to advance scientific knowledge while upholding high ethical standards throughout the research process.
2. 1. Choosing your topic
2. Review of literature
3. Formulating research
question
4. Development of working
hypothesis
5. Selecting the research
design
6. Sample size estimation
7. Collecting the data
8. Analysis of data
9. Preparation of report
10. Publishing the study
CONTENTS
4. TOPIC OF INTEREST
Personal interest &
Background knowledge
Literature and other
information
Research priorities in
the organization
Wide and
“out of the box”
thinking
Discussion with guides
and colleagues
Problem faced in own
area of work earlier
6. QUALITY NOT THE QUANTITY
“Gives theoretical rationale of problem being
studied, what research has been done and
how it relates to the problem”
7. Why perform literature review?
Give the big picture of the field.
Introduce the works that you will use.
Introduce the limitations of these works,
and why they don’t solve your problem.
Give hints on what your solution will
have to address.
8. APPROPRIATE PLACES TO SEARCH
General info
• HON certified sites
Systematic reviews/
•Web Search Engines – Google
Specific query
•PubMed, Scopus,
Google Scholar database etc
Systematic reviews/
Meta‐analysis / EBMs
•Cochrane Library
•Map of Medicine etc
Archived full text articles
•Free Open Access
•Fee Based – From Libraries
12. P • POPULATION
I • INTERVENTION
C • COMPARISON
O • OUTCOME
T • TIME
For adult patients, will the use of a powered toothbrush, compared to a
manual toothbrush, result in reduction in plaque and/or gingivitis?
P I
C O
13. Research question should pass The ‘so what?’ test
• Feasible
– Adequate number of participants, technical expertise & Resources
• Interesting
• Novel
– Confirms, refutes or extends previous findings
– Provides new information
• Ethical
– Amenable to a study that ethics committee will approve
• Relevant
– Advance scientific knowledge, improve practice, influence policy
16. • Working hypothesis is a tentative assumption.
• Describes concretely what is expected in a research study
• Hypothesis should be very specific and limited.
• Helps to keep the researcher on the right track.
• It also indicates the type of data required and the type of
methods of data analysis to be used.
DEVELOPMENT OF A WORKING HYPOTHESIS
17. Characteristics of good hypothesis
Simple
• One exposure
• One outcome
Specific
• No ambiguity about study
participants/variables
Stated in advance
• Written at onset
• Focused on primary
objective
Powered tooth brush has more or equal antiplaque
efficacy when compared to manual tooth brush.
23. ▪“Procedure by which some members of
the population are selected as
representatives of the entire population”
24. SAMPLE SIZE
How large should my sample be?
Ans:
It depends…
• Large enough to be an accurate
representation of the population.
• Large enough to achieve
statistically significant results.
25. Probability samples
• simple random sampling
• systematic sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
SAMPLE DESIGN
The sample design to be used must be decided by the researcher taking
into consideration the nature of the inquiry and other related factors.
Non-probability samples
• Convenience sampling
• Judgment sampling
• Quota sampling
30. • It is necessary to collect data that are appropriate.
• Primary data can be collected through experiment or through survey.
• In the case of a survey, data can be collected by any one or more of the following
ways:
34. ANALYSIS OF DATA
The ‘raw’ research data needs to be edited, tabulated and analyzed
to find the results and to interpret them.
– the method used may be manual or computer based.
– The analysis plan follows from the research objective of the study.
– Association and relationships of variables are identified and
discussed in the light of the specific problem.
35. SIGNIFICANCE BIAS
Statistically significant results have been
shown to be three times more likely to
be published than papers with null
results.
K.Dickerson et al,1987
MISUSED AND MISINTERPRETED
DOES NOT SUPPORT HYPOTHESIS
ITS ONLY A TOOL TO REJECT NULL HYPOTHESIS
37. Quotations are commonly printed as a means
of inspiration and to invoke philosophical
thoughts from the reader.
38. The main text of the report should have the following parts:
(a) Introduction
(b) Summary of findings
(c) Main report
(d) Conclusion
39. At the end of the report,
• Appendices should be enlisted in respect of all technical data.
• Bibliography, i.e., list of books, journals, reports, etc. consulted,
should also be given in the end.
• Index should also be given specially in a published research
report.
43. • Scientific writing
• Original / full research reports
• Short communications
• Case stories
• Systematic reviews / meta-analysis
• Books or book chapters
• Academic thesis
• Conference abstracts
PRESENTING YOUR RESEARCH
46. • Quoting verbatim without due acknowledgement of the
source;
• Paraphrasing by changing some of the words, or the order
of the words, without due acknowledgement of the source;
• Using someone else’s ideas without due reference;
• Cutting and pasting from the internet to make a pastiche
of online sources;
• Submitting someone else’s work (includes group works
without clear identification of who did the work);
47.
48. Direction of scientific research
Not determined by the pressure to win the ‘significance lottery’
But
Systematic, hypothesis-driven attempts to fill holes in our knowledge.
CONCLUSION
49. REFERENCES
1. Kothari CR, Garg G. Research methodology-methods and techniques.third
edition. Delhi: new age international(P) Limited;2014
2. Kumar R. Research methodology. Fourth edition. New Delhi: sage
publications;2015
3. World health organisation. Health research methodology – a guide for
training in research Methods. Second edition.
4. ICMR Health research fundamentals.
5. Dickersin, Kay, et al. "Publication bias and clinical trials." Controlled clinical
trials 8.4 (1987): 343-353.
Good morning everyone, I am dr.vineetha.k from the department of public health dentistry, And on todays basic science seminar I will be talking about the steps in research.
The seminar will be discussed under the following headings. Steps in research consists of series of actions or steps necessary to effectively carry out research. What are the few things to keep in mind while choosing you research topic. How to do a review of literature. Hpw
Now the first and the most important step,,,, choosing your research topic.
Choosing a research topic is a difficult task as your whole research depends on this. And you know that after you have fixed a topic it is difficult to change. So the best tip is select a topic which is of interest to you. You should be excited to do this study. The topic can be choosen from any of the following ways…that is slecting a topic based on your personal interest. That is from your undergraduate level if you have found an area which iyou always wanted to work on…that can be your topic… If you have worked in a clinic and have encountered a particular problem and you want to find a solution to that ..that can be your research topic… Next is research priorities of the organization you are working in…certain organizations will have certain priority or will be famous for that research…Ex() Next will be discussion with your guides and collegues… This is the most common way of selecting your topic as these people are in tune with the current research and it is a good idea to consult an expert if you are new to the field. Next is once your guide asks you to find a thesis topic , what will you do??? You go to a library and pick out a journal and start seeing articles. Or else you will google some topics, so there you are doing a literature search and you can come across an interesting article there …and that can be your research topic…Nd last is wide and out of box thinking…this is for people who are creative and gutsy … who think a bit differently
The most important factor in ROL is it is the quality that matters not the quantity of the studies… make sure you collect studies of good research design rather than going for collecting as many articles...
By doing review of literature you will get a bigger picture of the field… here you have two types of literature conceptual and empirical…in conceptual you collect the concepts and theories regarding your study .. For example if you are taking a bio marker findout the latest concpets and thoeries of that…and another aspect is collecting empirical literature where you can collect studies similar to your proposed study… By doing this you will be intriduced into the worl that you will use. You will be able to identify the limitation of these studies and why they didn’t solve yoyr problem. And it will give you hints to solve your problem.
Now where to search for your articles…if this question was asked 10 years afo.. The answer would have been a library but now the internet has taken over… So I have here a list of which are the sites to search for your study according to the evidence pyramid. You will be familiar with this…as this has been discussed by my collegue
Next step is formulating your research question
First we will start by doing an extensive literature search.. And then you need to identify research gaps for example in this study this has not been done…like that you will get n no of research gaps…your next job is to prioritize them as per your feasibility…so this depends on the manpower , resources and finally your budget…so acc to that arrange them in an order and zero in on your research question
That is the study should be feasible.. There shiuld be adequate no of participants, technical expertise and resources available for your study..
It should be interesting to the scientific community.
There shiuld be some a=novelty to it..i,e, it should provide new information
It should be ethical.
And relevant
Working hypothesis arise as a result of priori thinking about the subject, examination of the available data and material including related studies and the counsel of experts and interested parties.
This is where the researcher has to state the conceptual structure within which the research would be conducted. The preparation of such a design facilitates research to be as efficient as possible yielding maximum information.
Research designs are broadly classified into qualitative , quantitative and mixed…. For example if a person is giving free ice creams in a park…a quantitative study will make the following assumption i.e. only one in 30 take free ice cream…the observation is quantified. Qualitative research is concerned with understanding human behaviour from the informants perspective. Ex.. We will ask the persons who took the ice cream behavioural questions?? Mixed method is a new concept where you will take both qualitative and quantitative method of data collection. So you need both numbers and perspectives to get an accurate picture.
Now to find out what your research study is you can make use of this algorithm…This is a simple diagram where you ask four questions and you can find out your study.
all the items under consideration in any field of inquiry constitutes a population. A complete enumeration of all items in a population is known as a census inquiry. It leaves no element of chance and highest accuracy…but this type of inquiry involves a great deal of time, money and energy
This is the reason why we had to go to the statistician with a key article as we need an idea of the number which can give statistically significant result
Sample design is the way of selecting your sample. It is a definite plan determined before any data is actually collected for obtaining a sample from a given population. Samples can be either probability or non – propbablility samples. Propbabillity each element has a known probability of being included in the sample. Non – probablity does not allow the researcher to determine this probability.
Now every study involving human participants should follow ethical guidelines. So in india we follow ICMR Gguidelines which you can download from the website www.icmr.nic.in . There are also other guidelines if your research involves
This is the precribed format for an informed consent .
The researcher should select one of these methods of collecting data taking into consideration the nature of investigation, objective and scope of inquiry, financial resources, avaialble time and the desired degree of accuracy.
Once the data has been collected it requires a number of closely related operations such as establishment of categories, the application of these categories to raw data through coding, tabulation and then drawing statistical inferences. So in analysis the data is subjected to tests of significance to determine with what validity the data can be said to indicate any conclusions.
The p-value is defined as the probability of obtaining a result equal to or "more extreme" than what was actually observed, when the null hypothesis is true. cautioned that p-values are "commonly misused and misinterpreted." The use of bright-line rules as cutoffs, such as p ≤ 0.05, without other supporting statistical evidence, was particularly criticized:[7]
The widespread use of “statistical significance” (generally interpreted as “p ≤ 0.05”) as a license for making a claim of a scientific finding (or implied truth) leads to considerable distortion of the scientific process.
Finally the researcher has to prepare the report of what has been done by him/her.
It is again a difficult task.. So find appropriate journals for your study and make sure these journals have a good impact factor. Follow the journal guidelines see what reference style they are mentioning…
The direction of scientific research should not be determined by the pressure to win the significance lottery but it should give importance on systematic, hypothesis driven attempts to fill holes in our knowledge.