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What Is Research?: How To Do Research
What Is Research?: How To Do Research
Novelty: creating new or reviewing published info? Technology: develop new or use existing method(s)?
create review develop new use existing
• Most research projects are so-called original investigations. • Sometimes a legitimate topic for study is methodological.
• You obtain new data or information about a phenomenon. • For example, development or novel investigation of…
• You reach a conclusion and try to publish it. • a measuring device
• Some research projects are reviews of the literature.
literature • a psychometric instrument (questionnaire or inventory)
• You use other researchers' published data or info about a • a protocol for a physical performance test
phenomenon. • a diagnostic test
• A quantitative statistical review is called a meta-analysis. • a method of analysis.
• You should "earn your spurs" doing original research before taking • You usually include or focus on a reliability and/or validity study of
on a stand-alone review. the measure provided by the method.
• But a write-up of an original investigation always has to include a • Validity = the relationship between observed and true values.
short review of literature.
• Reliability = reproducibility of observed values.
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Scope: case or sample? • In a study of a sample…
• You are interested in "what happens in general".
case sample
• Rarely, "what" is simply descriptive: the frequency, mean value or
other simple statistic of something in the sample.
• Are you solving a single case of something, or is it a sample that
• Most often, the "what" is the value of an effect statistic: the
will allow you to generalize to a population? relationship between the thing of interest (a dependent variable,
• In a case study… such as health, performance…) and something else (a predictor
• You are interested in "what happened or will happen here". variable, such as training, gender, diet…) in the sample.
• Your finding applies only locally: to the case you studied. • Examples of effect statistics: difference or change in a mean
• The quest for an answer can be like that in a court case. value; ratio of frequencies (relative risk); correlation coefficient.
• Qualitative methods are often required. • You control for other possible predictor variables either by holding
• You reach an answer by applying logic (= common sense?) and them constant or measuring and including them in the analysis.
skepticism to your knowledge and to the information you gather. • Example: the effect of physical activity on health, controlling
• Be wary of conventional wisdom and your own prejudices. for the effect of age on health.
• It may be possible to estimate probabilities of benefit or truth of • In controlled trials (interventions), a control group accounts
various answers. for any effect of time that would have happened anyway.
• More about studying a sample… • There are several ways to generalize from sample to population…
• You study a sample, because it is impractical and wasteful (and • Old: develop a null hypothesis about a relationship, then test
therefore unethical) to study a population. the hypothesis (that is, try to falsify it) using statistical
significance based on something called the P value.
• “What happens in general" refers to the average person or
situation in a population represented by your sample. • New: identify a relationship, measure its magnitude, state
the uncertainty in the true value using confidence limits,
• "Population" is a defined group, not the entire human race or all
then make a conclusion about its clinical or practical
possible situations.
importance in the population.
• You make inferences about that population; that isis, you
• Sample size is a big issue.
generalize from the sample to a population.
• The smaller the sample, the more the uncertainty.
• You can make inferences to other populations only if you can
• A stronger relationship needs less certainty.
argue that those populations are similar to your sample with
respect to the effect you have studied. • So a stronger relationship needs a smaller sample.
• Unfortunately most relationships are weak or trivial,
so you usually need large samples.
Mode of Enquiry: observational or interventionist? • The following comments refer to observational and
interventionist studies with samples.
observational interventionist
or non-experimental • The estimate of the magnitude of a relationship is less likely to
or experimental
or descriptive be biased (that is, not the same as in a population) if…
• the sample is selected randomly from the population, and…
• In an observational study… • you have a high compliance (low proportion of dropouts).
• The aim is to gather data or information about the world as it is. • An observational studyy of a sample…
p
• So you hope the act of studying doesn't substantially modify the • usually establishes only an association between variables rather
thing you are interested in. than a causal relationship;
• In an interventionist study… • needs hundreds or even thousands of subjects for accurate
• You do something to the world and see what happens. estimation of trivial or small effects.
• You gather data or information almost always before and after the
intervention, then look for changes.
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• Types of observational study with a sample, weak to strong: • Types of intervention with a sample, weak to strong:
• Case series, e.g. 20 gold medallists. • No control group (time series), e.g. measure performance in 10
• Cross-sectional (correlational), e.g. a sample of 1000 athletes. athletes before and after a training intervention.
• Case-control (retrospective), e.g. 200 Olympians and 800 non- • Crossover, e.g. give 5 athletes a drug and another 5 athletes a
Olympians. placebo, measure performance; wait a while to wash out the
• Cohort (prospective or longitudinal), e.g. measure characteristics treatments, then cross over the treatments and measure again.
of 1000 athletes then determine incidence of Olympic medals • Ethically good, because all subjects get all treatments.
after 10 years. • But can't use if the effect of the treatment takes too long to
wash out.
• In an intervention with a sample… • Each subject can receive more than two treatments.
• You can establish causality: X really does affect Y. • Controlled trial, e.g. measure performance of 20 athletes before
• You may need only scores of subjects for accurate generalization and after a drug and another 20 before and after a placebo.
about trivial or small effects. • You need up to 4x as many subjects as in a crossover.
• The outcome is the effect of a treatment on the average subject.
• Researchers usually neglect the important question of individual
responses to the treatment.
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• Post-structuralist Politics: neutral or partisan?
• The researcher views people as subjects of discourses
(interrelated systems of unstable social meanings). neutral partisan
• Although the subjectivity of research is emphasized, the
• Most researchers aim to be politically neutral or impartial by
researchers attempt to achieve objectivity. Do they succeed?
presenting all sides of an argument.
• Many people find post-structuralist papers hard to understand.
• Alan Sokal, a physicist, wrote a nonsensical paper– • Sometimes the researcher is overtly partisan or adversarial.
Transgressing
g g the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative • In social science such research is known as critical or radical.
Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity–and got it accepted by the • The researcher attempts to raise understanding about
journal Social Text. oppression and to facilitate collective action against it.
• Some commentators regard critical research as a specific
• Interpretivist
paradigm in social science, but…
• Part of the truth of a situation can be found in the researcher's
• In my experience even biomedical researchers sometimes adopt
interpretation of the self-understandings of participants. an overtly partisan or adversarial stance on an issue.
• Truth is discovered partly by thought as well as by observation. • Or there are often hidden agendas and biased reporting.
• Grounded theory of social science is interpretivist: truth emerges • Maybe that’s OK, because their stance stimulates debate.
from your observations; you do not test a hypothesis.
• Some regions are less popular, but worth visiting. For example: • Qualitative methods applied to a sample often result in a small
sample size because…
• Action research is a subjective intervention with a case or sample.
• subjects are hard to get, or…
• Dealing with the problems of everyday life is an informal
kind of action research. • the interviews are too time consuming, or…
• the researchers dislike the idea of large samples.
• Some researchers identify the extreme subjects in a quantitative
survey, then interview them subjectively/qualitatively as cases. • But a study with a small sample can adequately characterize only
strong associations (large effects) in a population.
• Others do a qualitative pilot study of a few cases to identify a
problem and the appropriate measures for a largerg quantitative • So these small-scale qualitative studies are not definitive for a
study of a sample. smallll or ttrivial
i i l effect.
ff t
• Furthermore, open-ended inquiry is equivalent to assaying many
• A project based in an unusual region may give new insights… variables, so there is a high risk of finding a spurious association.
• But you may struggle to publish in journals devoted to more • If the sample is small, the spurious association will be strong.
popular regions.
• Therefore small-scale qualitative studies are not definitive even
• Researchers who mix qualitative methods (such as intensive for a moderate or large effect.
interviews) with studying a sample (for generalizing to a • Bottom line: when using qualitative methods to generalize to a
population) can run into a sample-size problem, as follows... population, you need a large sample to characterize small effects.
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In Conclusion…
This presentation is updated from a paper at:
• A given research project can be characterized by topic, novelty,
technology, scope, mode, methods, ideology, politics and utility.
• This dimensional view may help you sort out a good approach
to a specific project, but…
• I may have missed or mangled some dimensions.
dimensions Hopkins
H ki WG (2002).
(2002) Dimensions
Di i off research.
h Sportscience
S t i 6,
6
• There may be better ways to understand research. sportsci.org/2002