Buchanan and Alan Bryman, editors. Jewell, editors. Introduction to Systematic Reviews. Wood, and Larry V. Systematic Reviews. New York: Continuum, Search this Guide Search. Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper Offers detailed guidance on how to develop, organize, and write a college-level research paper in the social and behavioral sciences. The Abstract Executive Summary 4. The Introduction The C. The Discussion Limitations of the Study 9. The Conclusion Appendices Introduction Before beginning your paper, you need to decide how you plan to design the study.
General Structure and Writing Style The function of a research design is to ensure that the evidence obtained enables you to effectively address the research problem logically and as unambiguously as possible. The length and complexity of describing research designs in your paper can vary considerably, but any well-developed description will achieve the following : Identify the research problem clearly and justify its selection, particularly in relation to any valid alternative designs that could have been used, Review and synthesize previously published literature associated with the research problem, Clearly and explicitly specify hypotheses [i.
Action Research Design Definition and Purpose The essentials of action research design follow a characteristic cycle whereby initially an exploratory stance is adopted, where an understanding of a problem is developed and plans are made for some form of interventionary strategy. This is a collaborative and adaptive research design that lends itself to use in work or community situations.
Design focuses on pragmatic and solution-driven research outcomes rather than testing theories. When practitioners use action research, it has the potential to increase the amount they learn consciously from their experience; the action research cycle can be regarded as a learning cycle. Action research studies often have direct and obvious relevance to improving practice and advocating for change. There are no hidden controls or preemption of direction by the researcher.
It is harder to do than conducting conventional research because the researcher takes on responsibilities of advocating for change as well as for researching the topic. Action research is much harder to write up because it is less likely that you can use a standard format to report your findings effectively [i. Personal over-involvement of the researcher may bias research results.
The cyclic nature of action research to achieve its twin outcomes of action [e. Advocating for change usually requires buy-in from study participants. Case Study Design Definition and Purpose A case study is an in-depth study of a particular research problem rather than a sweeping statistical survey or comprehensive comparative inquiry.
Approach excels at bringing us to an understanding of a complex issue through detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events or conditions and their relationships. A researcher using a case study design can apply a variety of methodologies and rely on a variety of sources to investigate a research problem.
Design can extend experience or add strength to what is already known through previous research. Social scientists, in particular, make wide use of this research design to examine contemporary real-life situations and provide the basis for the application of concepts and theories and the extension of methodologies.
The design can provide detailed descriptions of specific and rare cases. A single or small number of cases offers little basis for establishing reliability or to generalize the findings to a wider population of people, places, or things.
Intense exposure to the study of a case may bias a researcher's interpretation of the findings. Design does not facilitate assessment of cause and effect relationships. Vital information may be missing, making the case hard to interpret. The case may not be representative or typical of the larger problem being investigated.
If the criteria for selecting a case is because it represents a very unusual or unique phenomenon or problem for study, then your interpretation of the findings can only apply to that particular case. Conditions necessary for determining causality: Empirical association -- a valid conclusion is based on finding an association between the independent variable and the dependent variable.
Appropriate time order -- to conclude that causation was involved, one must see that cases were exposed to variation in the independent variable before variation in the dependent variable.
Nonspuriousness -- a relationship between two variables that is not due to variation in a third variable. Causality research designs assist researchers in understanding why the world works the way it does through the process of proving a causal link between variables and by the process of eliminating other possibilities.
Replication is possible. There is greater confidence the study has internal validity due to the systematic subject selection and equity of groups being compared. Not all relationships are causal! The possibility always exists that, by sheer coincidence, two unrelated events appear to be related [e.
Conclusions about causal relationships are difficult to determine due to a variety of extraneous and confounding variables that exist in a social environment. This means causality can only be inferred, never proven. If two variables are correlated, the cause must come before the effect. However, even though two variables might be causally related, it can sometimes be difficult to determine which variable comes first and, therefore, to establish which variable is the actual cause and which is the actual effect.
Cohort Design Definition and Purpose Often used in the medical sciences, but also found in the applied social sciences, a cohort study generally refers to a study conducted over a period of time involving members of a population which the subject or representative member comes from, and who are united by some commonality or similarity.
Date of entry and exit from the study is individually defined, therefore, the size of the study population is not constant. In open cohort studies, researchers can only calculate rate based data, such as, incidence rates and variants thereof.
Closed Cohort Studies [static populations, such as patients entered into a clinical trial] involve participants who enter into the study at one defining point in time and where it is presumed that no new participants can enter the cohort. Given this, the number of study participants remains constant or can only decrease. The use of cohorts is often mandatory because a randomized control study may be unethical.
For example, you cannot deliberately expose people to asbestos, you can only study its effects on those who have already been exposed. Research that measures risk factors often relies upon cohort designs.
Cohort analysis is highly flexible and can provide insight into effects over time and related to a variety of different types of changes [e. Either original data or secondary data can be used in this design. In cases where a comparative analysis of two cohorts is made [e. These factors are known as confounding variables.
Cohort studies can end up taking a long time to complete if the researcher must wait for the conditions of interest to develop within the group. This also increases the chance that key variables change during the course of the study, potentially impacting the validity of the findings.
Due to the lack of randominization in the cohort design, its external validity is lower than that of study designs where the researcher randomly assigns participants. Cross-Sectional Design Definition and Purpose Cross-sectional research designs have three distinctive features: no time dimension; a reliance on existing differences rather than change following intervention; and, groups are selected based on existing differences rather than random allocation.
Cross-sectional studies provide a clear 'snapshot' of the outcome and the characteristics associated with it, at a specific point in time. Unlike an experimental design, where there is an active intervention by the researcher to produce and measure change or to create differences, cross-sectional designs focus on studying and drawing inferences from existing differences between people, subjects, or phenomena.
Entails collecting data at and concerning one point in time. While longitudinal studies involve taking multiple measures over an extended period of time, cross-sectional research is focused on finding relationships between variables at one moment in time.
Groups identified for study are purposely selected based upon existing differences in the sample rather than seeking random sampling. Cross-section studies are capable of using data from a large number of subjects and, unlike observational studies, is not geographically bound.
Can estimate prevalence of an outcome of interest because the sample is usually taken from the whole population. Because cross-sectional designs generally use survey techniques to gather data, they are relatively inexpensive and take up little time to conduct. Finding people, subjects, or phenomena to study that are very similar except in one specific variable can be difficult.
Results are static and time bound and, therefore, give no indication of a sequence of events or reveal historical or temporal contexts. Studies cannot be utilized to establish cause and effect relationships. This design only provides a snapshot of analysis so there is always the possibility that a study could have differing results if another time-frame had been chosen.
There is no follow up to the findings. Descriptive Design Definition and Purpose Descriptive research designs help provide answers to the questions of who, what, when, where, and how associated with a particular research problem; a descriptive study cannot conclusively ascertain answers to why. The subject is being observed in a completely natural and unchanged natural environment. True experiments, whilst giving analyzable data, often adversely influence the normal behavior of the subject [a.
Descriptive research is often used as a pre-cursor to more quantitative research designs with the general overview giving some valuable pointers as to what variables are worth testing quantitatively. If the limitations are understood, they can be a useful tool in developing a more focused study.
Descriptive studies can yield rich data that lead to important recommendations in practice. Appoach collects a large amount of data for detailed analysis. The results from a descriptive research cannot be used to discover a definitive answer or to disprove a hypothesis. Because descriptive designs often utilize observational methods [as opposed to quantitative methods], the results cannot be replicated.
The descriptive function of research is heavily dependent on instrumentation for measurement and observation. Experimental Design Definition and Purpose A blueprint of the procedure that enables the researcher to maintain control over all factors that may affect the result of an experiment.
Experimental research allows the researcher to control the situation. Experimental research designs support the ability to limit alternative explanations and to infer direct causal relationships in the study. Approach provides the highest level of evidence for single studies.
The design is artificial, and results may not generalize well to the real world. The artificial settings of experiments may alter the behaviors or responses of participants.
Experimental designs can be costly if special equipment or facilities are needed. Some research problems cannot be studied using an experiment because of ethical or technical reasons. Difficult to apply ethnographic and other qualitative methods to experimentally designed studies. Exploratory Design Definition and Purpose An exploratory design is conducted about a research problem when there are few or no earlier studies to refer to or rely upon to predict an outcome.
The goals of exploratory research are intended to produce the following possible insights: Familiarity with basic details, settings, and concerns. Well grounded picture of the situation being developed. Generation of new ideas and assumptions. Development of tentative theories or hypotheses.
Determination about whether a study is feasible in the future. Issues get refined for more systematic investigation and formulation of new research questions.
Direction for future research and techniques get developed. Design is a useful approach for gaining background information on a particular topic. Exploratory research is flexible and can address research questions of all types what, why, how.
Provides an opportunity to define new terms and clarify existing concepts. Exploratory research is often used to generate formal hypotheses and develop more precise research problems. In the policy arena or applied to practice, exploratory studies help establish research priorities and where resources should be allocated. Exploratory research generally utilizes small sample sizes and, thus, findings are typically not generalizable to the population at large.
The exploratory nature of the research inhibits an ability to make definitive conclusions about the findings. They provide insight but not definitive conclusions. The research process underpinning exploratory studies is flexible but often unstructured, leading to only tentative results that have limited value to decision-makers. Design lacks rigorous standards applied to methods of data gathering and analysis because one of the areas for exploration could be to determine what method or methodologies could best fit the research problem.
Field Research Design Definition and Purpose Sometimes referred to as ethnography or participant observation, designs around field research encompass a variety of interpretative procedures [e. Field research is often necessary to fill gaps in understanding the research problem applied to local conditions or to specific groups of people that cannot be ascertained from existing data. The research helps contextualize already known information about a research problem, thereby facilitating ways to assess the origins, scope, and scale of a problem and to gage the causes, consequences, and means to resolve an issue based on deliberate interaction with people in their natural inhabited spaces.
Enables the researcher to corroborate or confirm data by gathering additional information that supports or refutes findings reported in prior studies of the topic. Because the researcher in embedded in the field, they are better able to make observations or ask questions that reflect the specific cultural context of the setting being investigated.
Observing the local reality offers the opportunity to gain new perspectives or obtain unique data that challenges existing theoretical propositions or long-standing assumptions found in the literature. What these studies don't tell you A field research study requires extensive time and resources to carry out the multiple steps involved with preparing for the gathering of information, including for example, examining background information about the study site, obtaining permission to access the study site, and building trust and rapport with subjects.
Requires a commitment to staying engaged in the field to ensure that you can adequately document events and behaviors as they unfold. The unpredictable nature of fieldwork means that researchers can never fully control the process of data gathering.
They must maintain a flexible approach to studying the setting because events and circumstances can change quickly or unexpectedly. Findings can be difficult to interpret and verify without access to documents and other source materials that help to enhance the credibility of information obtained from the field [i.
Linking the research problem to the selection of study participants inhabiting their natural environment is critical. However, this specificity limits the ability to generalize findings to different situations or in other contexts or to infer courses of action applied to other settings or groups of people.
The reporting of findings must take into account how the researcher themselves may have inadvertently affected respondents and their behaviors. Medical care -- Finance. Medical care -- Cost effectiveness.
Medical policy. Medical subjects: Clinical Trials as Topic. Research Design. Biomedical Research -- methods. Ethics, Research. Financing, Organized. Research Report. Summary: "Written for researchers, clinicians and doctoral students, the newly revised edition of this comprehensive reference continues to deliver the essentials of intervention research with added content on evidence-based quality improvement, a must for improving healthcare quality, safety and population health outcomes.
Chapters cover writing grant applications and show examples of actual applications that have been funded by NIH and other organizations. These real-life samples are available online, alongside additional progress reports and final reports. Real-world examples of evidence-based quality improvement projects that have improved outcomes also are highlighted in this second edition.
Here, you will find a seamless experience that includes your books and their included resources all in one place, with one log in! The store will not work correctly in the case when cookies are disabled. My Account. Advanced Search. Designing, Conducting, Analyzing, and Funding. View digital version. Add to Cart. Skip to the end of the images gallery. Skip to the beginning of the images gallery. New to the Second Edition: Describes evidence-based quality improvement and specific steps in conducting EBQI projects, which are essential for enhancing healthcare quality, safety and costs along with enhancing population health outcomes.
Emphasizes the importance of interprofessional teams Focuses on using research-based interventions in real-world settings Six new chapters o Generating Versus Using Evidence to Guide Best Practice o Setting the Stage for Intervention Research and Evidence-based Quality Improvement o Evidence-based Quality Improvement o Translational Research: Why and How o Factors Influencing Successful Uptake of Evidence-Based Interventions in Clinical Practice o Using Social Media to Enhance Uptake of Research-Based Interventions into Real World Clinical Settings Key Features: Provides a practical, comprehensive resource for designing, conducting, analyzing, and funding intervention studies Outlines the specific steps in designing, conducting and evaluating outcomes of evidence-based quality improvement projects Includes examples of funding research grants, progress reports, and final reports Serves as a core text for students in doctoral nursing and other health sciences programs.
Moore 6.
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