course material

1. Introduction to research methods for health
Introduction to research methods for healthCategory : Bold Essays WritingIntroduction to
research methods for health Number of Words of Assessment Up to 2500 wordsDescription
Identify a topic of relevance to your degree discipline, review relevant literature on this
topic, develop a research question and identify a suitable methodology for conducting a
piece of research to answer this. Date Assessment due Monday 11th July 16 Learning
Outcomes Assessed Learning Outcome 1: Demonstrate knowledge and a critical
understanding of the range of research method (s) used in the student’ s area (s) of study.
Learning Outcome 2: Demonstrate the ability to retrieve and appraise current research
related to the students’ area (s) of study. Learning Outcome 3: Identify a health or social
care related review topic, place this within the context of an established body of knowledge
and develop a coherent research question.Learning Outcome 4: Demonstrate a critical
understanding of the two main research methodologies and select the most appropriate of
these to answer your chosen research question Hand in arrangements Hand two copies of
your work – electronic and hard copy.This copy MUST include a copy of the front sheet of
your 4 chosen studies.Your work cannot be marked without a copy of the front page of each
of your chosen studies in an appendix to your essay.You can cut and paste the front page of
each of your studies into an appendix at the end of your essay. • I want my study topic to be
adult obesity within women in the UK. • Include factors which are the key themes related to
the topic from journal articles in the UK. • Choose four research studies from the journal
articles to review and compare the factors affecting obesity within women in the UK. • I
need a copy of the complete four research studies you choose in my coursework; you can
put it in the appendices. • Come up with a new research question related to my topic and
aID in the coursework. • Also in the appendices (at the end of the assignment) aID a search
description or a literature review of how you achieved the four chosen studies and journal
articles. • Please use Harvard referencing. • There’ s an example essay template and step
by step guide below: Marking Criteria The work has a clear unambiguous Title. A narrowly
defined & well focused review topic has been selected. 10% The Introduction includes a
brief justification of why the review topic is important and outlines the contents of the
assignment 150 words. 5% The literature search is briefly described or given in a table in an
appendix. This should give enough detail to allow another person to repeat the steps you
took when you did your search – search terms used, data bases searched and results of each
search. Give a list of your chosen studies using the Harvard System in an appendix 5% At
least 4 primary research studies are found that relate very closely to the topic chosen (as

2. the source of the themes to be developed for this review). The 4 chosen primary research
studies should be placed in an appendix to the assignment. Literature reviews should not be
included among your chosen studies. Pass / Fail Between 3 and 8 themes developed from
the findings / results sections of your 4 chosen studies ONLY. Themes will outline the main
issues identified in the findings / results sections of your chosen studies and discuss these.
1200 words. 30% New Research Needed: On the basis of your themes, identify any new
research that is needed in your topic area. Outline these “ gap/s in current academic
knowledge” . Please ensure this section of your review is based on your 4 chosen studies
only. 10% On the basis of what you said in the last section, develop a research question that
aIDresses one small piece of the new research that is needed. State this question simply,
clearly and coherently. 5% The two major methodologies are defined. A suitable
methodology to answer your research question is identified & this choice is justified.
Identify and discuss the population of interest, sampling strategy, sample size & method of
data collection. This section will be Referenced using research methods texts. 800 words.
20% Harvard referencing correctly used throughout. All articles and research studies
included in this work should be referenced in the normal way. The reference list is
organised in alphabetical order according to the family name of the first author. “ et al” is
used in the text only and only when there are 4 or more authors. A clear & simple writing
style, with no typing, spelling or grammatical errors. The work is coherently organised
according to the marking criteria. 15% The assignment gives you the opportunity to identify
a topic that is of interest to you and develop an overview of current academic knowledge
(research studies) regarding this topic. You need to start with a clear, well focused and
narrow review topic.You will now have very good skills to carry out an electronic search for
up to date academic literature and research studies on your chosen topic. You should keep
details of this search in order to give a brief description of this in an appendix to your work.
You need to use electronic literature search skills to search the university data bases to find
at least 4 academic research studies to include in your review.Your aim is to provide an
overview of this area of academic knowledge that is organized using a coherent thematic
approach – so that the most important issues about the topic are identified. The academic
knowledge you identify in the themes should be based on the findings sections of the 4
primary research studies that you found during your electronic search. These issues should
be used as headings in your review and you should cover material from your research
studies in each Theme you have identified. This will result in a good overview of what is
currently known about your chosen topic – on the basis of your 4 chosen research
studies.You then need to decide what is not currently known about your topic area – what
research still needs to be conducted? These are the gaps in academic knowledge. You will
need to identify these gaps in academic knowledge clearly in your review – either at the end
of each theme or after all the themes sections.Consider the gaps in academic knowledge that
you have identified. Which one would you like to carry out a research study on? You can
now develop a research question which might be used as the basis for a new research study
designed to fill a gap in academic knowledge. The question should be clearly and coherently
stated.Having decided on a research question you then need to design a research study to
answer this question. Decide which of the two major research methodologies is most

3. appropriate to use in the design of your new research study. This can be qualitative or
quantitative, but not both. You need to briefly describe or define the 2 methodologies –
qualitative and quantitative. Then identify which methodology would be best to use to
answer your research question and explain why it is the best one to use. This section should
also include an indication of the methods to be used in your study such as data collection
method, desired participants, sampling strategy and sample size. This section should be
referenced using some of the research methods texts recommended in the module guide.
Step by step guide: Assignment 5HL0081. Topic: Including rationale for your choice 2.
Gather 4 Research Studies (Articles): Log/Record how you find these Studies – Full
Database detail 3. Literature Review of Four Studies 4. Themes: 3-8 new Headings 5. Gaps in
this literature review/analysis (State on what is not known) 6. Compile a Research
Question: Aim / Hypothesis 7. Research Study Design: 8. Methodology. 9. Methods:
Population/Sample. Sampling strategy & Size. 10. Data collection method. Example essay:
Example Essay 1: A review of family factors and childhood obesityPeople who experienced
obesity in childhood are more likely to die prematurely, or suffer disabilities. Also, they are
more possibly to experience overweight or obesity in their youth, along with other
noncommunicable diseases like diabetes problems and cardio-vascular diseases. (WHO,
2012a). The number of children suffering obesity is steadily increasing and in 2010, the
World Health Organisation estimated that worldwide, and that it had already exceeded 42
million (WHO, 2012b). It can be seen therefor, that obesity in its’ many forms is fast
becoming a global problem, and in need of urgent attention. According to NHS (2012), there
are four main causes leading to this disease: lifestyle choices, lacking of physical activity,
genetics and medical reasons. Moreover, both of lifestyle choices and genetics are
significantly associated with family factors. Thus, it came up with a review question “ The
relations between family factors and childhood obesity” . Thus, in order to further a review
of this topic, this essay will try to compare and analyse four main academic research studies
involving factors within the family that could lead to childhood obesity. As there are not
many research studies based on the general population, one study for specific area was
chosen. Mushtaq et al. (2011) studied this topic on Pakistan.Finances/ Parental
employment Three of the studies showed that there is a strong financial element that plays
an important role in the effects of children medically classified as ‘ Obese’ . Garasky et al.
(2009) suggested that financial difficulties within the family can lead to the children being
overweight or obese. Older children are more sensible in regard to such stresses than
younger children. AIDitionally, Gibson et al. (2007) said that children in families with lower
incomes can be more prone to obesity, as there appears to be a great difficulty in these
families, to manage their family budgets to be able to afford healthy foods, as they tend to be
a little more expensive than cheaper alternatives, and have enough finances to engage in
other leisure activities. However, Mushtaq et al. (2011) said that in Pakistan, living in high-
income neighbourhoods, children were at a greater risk of being overweight or obese than
those who in miIDle-income or lower income neighbourhoods. There were different effects
of socioeconomic class between developing countries and developed countries. Higher
socioeconomic class is significantly associated with childhood obesity in the developing
countries. On the contrary, lower socioeconomic class was more likely lead to childhood

4. obesity in developed countries. Socioeconomic factors affect obesity in Asia but not in Latin
American, this is related to social culture. In aIDition, children with both parents working, in
which both parents contribute to the family budget tend to have a greater propensity to
obesity in children than would, a single parent staying at home. McConley et al. (2011)
however, did not develop this topic in their research study.Parenting style/ Lifestyle
McConley et al. (2011) thought that lower parenting quality was positively associated with
obesity in children, because lower parenting quality stands for several poor parenting styles
like parents having not enough interactions with their children, parents being not able to
prepare meals very well and they could not take part in activities with children a lot, all
these poor parenting styles could lead to childhood obesity. In aIDition, parenting quality
linked with children’ s levels of leisure activity and sedentary behaviour, but, an interesting
finding showed that lower parenting quality had an association with children’ s sedentary
behaviour only in non-His-panic whites. Both of lacking of physical activities and sedentary
behaviour could increase children’ s weight. While, Gibson et al. (2007) thought that
parenting style was not directly related to childhood obesity, but it might affect the
children’ s lifestyle as the children’ s choice of foods and lack of physical exercise, which
could have possible impacts on children’ s weight. Similarly, Garasky et al. (2009) also
agreed that a child’ s poor lifestyle could lead to an increase in weight. Nonetheless,
McConley et al. (2011) suggested that healthy food intake might not have a direct effect on
child BMI, as healthy diets include many skills such as recognizing appropriate portion sizes
and avoiding over-eating. Social culture Social culture might be an underlying cause of child
obesity. According to Mushtaq et al. (2011), in South Asia, sociocultural circumstances affect
people’ s lifestyles, which significantly relates to peoples’ weight, of different
socioeconomic classes. Children in wealthy families are more likely to be overweight or
obese, as they use transportations, like car or bus, a lot; and use electric products more in
their rest time, which leads to the lack of physical activity. They also buy many unhealthy
foods to eat, because their parents are too busy to cook meals for them. On the contrary,
children in poor families do not have many these chances, and are forced to have more
physical activities and to eat home-cooked foods. However, there is no evidence to support
this factor from Gibson et al. (2007), Garasky et al. (2009) and McConley et al.
(2011).Mental and Physical health Garasky et al. (2009) found that the main carer’ s mental
and physical health can significantly influence whether or not children in their care will
become obese. These factors affect older adolescents more than younger children, because
older children having better cognitive capabilities and reasoning skills may reflect on stress
event more deeply. Also, McConley et al. (2011) said that maternal depression might lead to
lower parenting quality, lower levels of leisure activity and more sedentary behaviour, then,
consequently resulted in child obesity. However, Gibson et al. (2007) suggested that
maternal mental health is not associated with childhood obesity, however, it was found that
the overweight child with mother who has unhealthy mental problem is more likely to be
taken to be treated. AIDitionally, the mother’ s physical health, (weight associated
problems), is significant. It is claimed that a higher rate of obesity appears among children
who have overweight mothers. Besides, Garasky et al. (2009) agreed that children’ s mental
health also plays an important factor when considering childhood obesity. Acceptable

5. mechanisms explained that stress may cause people to adopt an unhealthy diet (Jenkins et
al. 2005, in Garasky et al. 2009) and a lack of physical activities (Roemmich et al. 2003, in
Garasky et al. 2009), also, stress makes people secrete too much cortisol (Booth et al. 2000,
in Garasky et al. 2009), and it can lead to metabolic disorders (Bjorntrop 2001, in Garasky et
al. 2009). All these situations can create the consequence of being overweight or obese
(Ness et al. 2007 & Dimitriou et al. 2003, in Garasky et al. 2009). Mushtaq et al. (2011) had
no related studies about these factors.Cognitive stimulation/ Emotional Support Garasky et
al. (2009) found that cognitive stimulation and emotional support were very important for
childhood obesity, as lacking of cognitive stimulation and emotional support could be
stressors for children, which mentioned above has significant impact on children’ s weight.
Children lacking cognitive stimulation and emotional support are generally overweight or
obese. Younger children mainly get this support from their parents, while older children
may gain more this support beyond the family. Gibson et al. (2007), McConley et al. (2011)
and Mushtaq et al. (2011) however did not describe this factor.Parental education level/
Educational support Parental education and educational support are considered as relevant
factors of obesity in children. Gibson et al. (2007) said that a lower standard of educational
support may also relate to such obesity. Similarly, Mushtaq et al. (2011) reported that
parental education had effect on childhood obesity. Higher parental education was
positively associated with childhood obesity in the developing countries; however, an
inverse association was displayed in the developed countries. However, the reason was not
given yet, Garasky et al. (2009) and McConley et al. (2011) also had not exposition of these
factors.Family structure Family structure is also associated with childhood obesity. Gibson
et al. (2007) reported that children of a single-mother or being in an obesogenic
environment are at high risk of being overweight and obese. Either McConley et al. (2011)
had a similar conclusion that single parenthood was positively associated with childhood
obesity, but, it only related to girls’ BMI but not boys’ BMI. However, the reason is unclear
yet. Mushtaq et al. (2011) and Garasky et al. (2009) did not study this factor with available
scientific data.Living environment Two of the research studies showed that living
environments have effects on obesity in children. According to Mushtaq et al. (2011), both
of fewer brothers and sisters and fewer persons in child’ s living room were independently
associated with higher BMI. Children who have three or fewer siblings are easier to be
overweight or obese than those who have more than three siblings. The reason was
unknown yet. In aIDition, McConley et al. (2011) said that children living in insecure
neighbourhoods are more likely to be overweight or obese. As they would stay at home a lot
and kill more time with media, which lead to lacking leisure activity and sedentary
behaviours. Garasky et al. (2009) and Gibson et al. (2007) however did not elaborate on this
factor.Both of Gibson et al. (2007) and McConley et al. (2011) stated that children with
single parent tend to be overweight or obese, but there is no ample reason to explain this
phenomenon. and no further studies have to date published a report with reference to it.
According to NHS (2012), lifestyle surely is a main cause for obesity, and the majority of
cases of obesity are direct results of overeat and lacking of physical activities. In aIDition,
Mushtaq et al. (2011) explained that culture cloud affect individuals’ lifestyle, which
relates to obesity, as well. Thus, culture was supposed to be a factor of obesity in children.

6. Therefore, it came up with a research question “ How does culture work on obesity in
children with single parent?” This is a qualitative question.According to Parahoo (2006,
p.62-63), qualitative methodology aims to explore, understand and explain existent social
phenomena, such as perceptions or actions of participants, through studying its’ internal
regularity. Also, the research question is trying to find out why single parenthood could lead
to childhood obesity, and what role the culture plays in this phenomenon. Therefore,
qualitative methodology is the most appropriate to answer this research question.
Ethnography is appropriate when studying this research question, as Parahoo (2006, p.67-
68) introduced that ethnography is one of common approaches in qualitative research,
which collects data from natural environment and focuses on how the cultural environment
impacts on people’ s behaviour. According to Parahoo (2006, p.65-66), qualitative
methodology uses flexible methods to collect data and analyse it. Data collection methods
include interview, observations, group discussions, and the analysis of video recordings,
letters, diaries and other documents. Moreover, as Parahoo (2006, p.367-368) stated, the
ethnographic approach combining observations and interviews allows researchers to more
deeply understand the reasons for this phenomenon. So, in order to answer the above
question, qualitative interviews and participant observation would be selected to collect
data. The daily life of those overweight or obese children having single parents would be
observed and then these children with their parents would be interviewed. Participant
observation would be chosen, and according to Parahoo (2006, p.367), this method is that
researchers through going deep into the participants’ daily world try to understand their
feelings and behaviour within their social and cultural groups. In this study, by observing
children’ s daily life for a period of time, the researchers would begin to understand in
specific culture backgrounds, how these children feel about having a single parent, and
realize why they have behavioural patterns leading to obesity, such as a poor diet, physical
inactivity. Then, qualitative interview would be chosen, and according to Parahoo (2006,
p.322-325), it is a method used by researchers to explore a phenomenon. In this type of
interview, interviewees are free to express their feelings or perspectives of one topic, but
not directed to answer the question. Besides, during the whole process of the interview, the
interviewers are allowed to go back to the respondents to continue the previous
conversation to gain more accurate and complete responses. This method seeks for all
possible opinions and thoughts about the same phenomenon. Researchers would often gain
new perspectives and use a range of views to understand and explain one phenomenon
from different aspects. So that by using qualitative interview to answer this research
question researchers could gain many different responses, which may explain how the
children feel about being in single parent families, and why they have such behaviours that
may lead to obesity, from children of different culture. Then, the functions of culture in
obesity in children with single parents could well be aIDressed. Nevertheless, these
methods still have their own limitations and difficulties. One problem of ethnography, as
Parahoo (2006, p.368), is that researcher may become over-involved in their research
objectives’ world instead of observing them. If researchers can not balance these roles
well, the study results would be influenced. For qualitative interview, according to Parahoo
(2006, p.326-328), the qualitative data is not so as reliable as quantitative data, as the same

7. interviewer would conduct the interviews differently every time, or different interviewers
would conduct the interviews in different ways. Reliability is the key point of studying the
phenomenon. In aIDition, it is difficult for researchers to meet reflexivity, as the
interviewees’ responses could not always be understood accurately. Thus, interviewers
need to rephrase interviewees’ responses to make sure whether they understand those
data in a right way or not. Trust is also a difficulty during interviews. For some sensitive or
private topics, respondents might not completely express their perspectives for a
phenomenon without trusting interviewers. Thus, researchers need to continuously
improve their techniques and skills to overcome these limitations and difficulties.All in all,
through the analysis and comparison of these four main research studies, it can be
concluded that childhood obesity can be positively associated with a lack of cognitive
stimulation and emotional support, lower educational support, children’ s negatively
mental health, poor lifestyle, poor parenting style, poor parental mental health, fewer
siblings, family structure (single-mother family), having an overweight or obese mother and
unsafe neighbourhoods. In aIDition, economic condition and parental education level have
different impacts on children’ s weight in different areas. High parental education and high-
income families are positively associated with childhood obesity in developing countries.
Effects of those factor are opposite in developed countries. Social culture influences the
economic condition’ s effect. Mechanisms of fewer siblings, parental education level and
single parenthood are still unclear. To aIDress one of those gaps, a research question “ How
does culture work on obesity in children with single parent?” arose. Qualitative
methodology was chosen, and qualitative interview and participant observation were used
to collect data to answer this research question. Family stressors influence child’ s weight a
lot, in many cases, childhood obesity could be affected by combinations of multi-factor. It
still needs further studies to explore this topic.Reference:Gibson, L.Y., Byrne, S.M., Davis,
E.A., Blair, E., Jacoby, P. and Zubrick, S.R. (2007) The role of family and maternal factors in
childhood obesity. Medical Journal of Australia, 186(11), pp.591-5.Garasky, S., Stewart, S.D.,
Gundersen, C., Lohman, B.J. and Eisenmann, J.C. (2009) Family stressors and child obesity.
Social Science Research, 38(4), pp.755-766.McConley, R.L., Mrug, S., Gilliland, M. J., Lowry,
R., Elliott, M.N., Schuster, M.A., Bogart, L.M., Franzini, L., Escobar-Chaves, S.L. and Franklin,
F.A. (2011) Mediators of Maternal Depression and Family Structure on Child BMI: Parenting
Quality and Risk Factors for Child Overweight. Obesity, 19(2), pp.345-352.Mushtaq, M.U.,
Gull, S., Shahid, U., Shafique, M.M., Abdullah, H.M., Shad, M.A. and SiIDiqui, A.M. (2011)
Family-based factors associated with overweight and obesity among Pakistani primary
school children. BMC Pediatrics, 11(114), pp.1471-2431.National Health Service (NHS)
(2012) Causes of Obesity [online]. NHS. [Accessed 16 April 2013]. Available at :<
https://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Obesity/Pages/Causes.aspx >.Parahoo, K. (2006) Nursing
Research. 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.World Health Organization (WHO)
(2012a) Why does childhood overweight and obesity matter? [online]. WHO. [Accessed 28
December 2012]. Available at:.World Health Organization (WHO) (2012b) Childhood
overweight and obesity [online]. WHO. [Accessed 28 December 2012]. Available at:.
Appendix 1: Search Description By reading information on some health websites, I choose
childhood obesity as the study topic. Then I searched the factors of childhood obesity

8. online, and found that family-based factors were popular. So I search the key words “ family
factor” and “ child obesity” via university’ s library catalogue, found several related
journal articles. Finally, by comparing them I choose four research studies to review.
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