Tag: research design

Healthcare Research-Education

Institutional Review Board Member Handbook

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

Institutional Review Boards, or IRBs, review human-subjects research to ensure that they ethically affirm the rights of the participants in their research. I have some projects about to undergo IRB review, and though I’ve had successful reviews in the past, I wanted to better understand the issues involved in IRB approval. This book offered a concise, evidence-based summary of those very issues. The book is written primarily for those who are about to serve on…

Continue reading

Biostatistics

Research Design in the Social Sciences: Declaration, Diagnosis & Redesign

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

This book is hard to place. As the title suggests, it’s about how to design research studies in the social sciences. However, it relies on more-or-less mathematical modeling to define how a study should proceed. The book is filled with mathematical notation – not as much to derive theorems but to give the thinking precision. It’s very abstract, perhaps too abstract for more practical needs. I’m not sure people with limited experience, like me or…

Continue reading

Research-Education

Designing Quality Survey Questions

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

In our connected world, we’re inundated by data collection tools. Today’s technology surpasses the quality of anything we’ve had before, and sending out a mass survey is easier than ever. However, many researchers ask the same-old questions in the same-old style they’ve seen in prior surveys. In so doing, they repeat the same mistakes prior generations made. This book’s two expert/authors address ways to think about and formulate survey questions that give you the data…

Continue reading

Healthcare Research-Education

Fundamentals of Clinical Trials, Fifth Edition

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

In the past century, clinical research has grown dramatically as the number of questions about healthcare has increased. The current paradigm of evidence-based medicine describes the practice of prescribing medicines based on their tested strength instead of an individual’s limited experience. Of course, to make such judgments, a rich bed of research evidence needs to exist, and this book succinctly describes how such questions are investigated for eventual dissemination. This book’s language is succinct and…

Continue reading

Research-Education

Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches

By Scott J. Pearson | by Scott J. Pearson

The academic field of research methods describes how different approaches to research can yield insight and results. Historically, quantitative (i.e., numerical) approaches have dominated. Recently, qualitative (i.e., descriptive in words) approaches have increased. Also recently, mixed methods approaches have combined the two to tell interesting stories more expeditiously. In this work, Creswell and Creswell delineate all three methods and help the reader make the most of their research efforts. The fact that this book is…

Continue reading