Steps in Conducting Quantitative

Research
Dr. Muhammad Tahir Rizwan Khan
MBBS (Dow), MS Biostatistics & Epidemiology (Dow), M.Phil (University of Oslo)
Assistant Professor
Lecture Outline
 Selection of Research topic; selecting the playground
 Literature review; identifying the gaps
 Developing the Hypothesis (if warranted)
 Developing the Objectives; what you want to find out
 Protocol; writing the blue print of the research
 Ethical Committee & Scientific Committee clearance
 Data Collection; gathering required information
 Analyses
 Report writing
 Dissemination of knowledge

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STEP I: Selection of Research topic;
selecting the playground
 Selection of AREA & TOPIC of Research
 Depends on
 Academic background
 Personal interests
 Important issues in your relevant field

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What make a poor research question?
 A question you don’t care about…
…nor anyone else
 Perusing routine clinical data (often incomplete,
biased, confounded) then trying to think of a
question

 A fishing expedition/data dredging- gathering lots of

information and hoping a question will emerge

 Statistical analysis of data for many outcomes may

yield false positives (type I errors) or false negatives
owing to lack of power (type II errors)
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 Resources Time
Duration
available A cohort study of
monetary, 10 years follow-
technical, doability up??

Technical
Literature Importance
Review Final
Association of
smoking and lung
cancer ??
research
question

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STEP I: Selection of Research topic;
selecting the playground
 Selection of AREA & TOPIC of Research

 Substance abuse- Cigarette smoking

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STEP II: Crude Research Question
 Unrefined & tentative research question which needs
further refinement after literature review to formulate
objectives of the study
 It indicates the basic parameters of the research

 What interventions can reduce the burden of

Smoking?

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STEP III: Literature Review
identifying the gaps
 Process through which topic related, pre-existing
knowledge is gathered and assessed
 Usually large databases are used for the search of
relevant published literature
 Key words are used for convenience and uniformity

 Smoking, Cessation interventions

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STEP III: Literature Review
identifying the gaps
 Sources for Relevant Literature Search
 PubMed

 Google Scholar

 PakMediNet

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 KEY WORDS

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 STEP III: Literature Review
identifying the gaps

4191
15500 (PUBMED
)
(Google
Scholar)
•Only 3 studies
from Pakistan
61
•All observational (PakMediNet)
studies
•Found out majority
of smoking
cessation
interventions are
effective
156 Articles (10 central
articles-3 from Pakistan)

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STEP IVa:Hypothesis Generation
 All of the studies selected after literature review has
shown some degree of effect of cessation
interventions on smoking cessation
 Is this true among Pakistanis as well?

 HO: There is no effect of smoking cessation

interventions on smoking cessation rates among
Pakistani adolescents

 HA: There is an effect of smoking cessation

interventions on smoking cessation rates among
Pakistani adolescents

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STEP IVb: Developing the Objectives
devising the question that needs answering..
 Final & precise statement/research question which
will be answered by carrying out research
 Depending on the scope, it can have general
objectives and specific objectives

 To determine the effect of graphic and text warning labels

(on cigarette packs) on smoking cessation rates

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STEP V: Study Design

Quantitative
Research

Observational Experimental

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Sample Size Calculations
 Minimum number of observations required to ensure
the power of the statistical inferences
 Done using one of the many available sample size
calculators for different study designs
 OpenEpi.com
 200 Smokers aged 16-24 years

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Protocol Writing
the blueprint of the research
 Introduction
 Literature review
 Objectives
 Methods:
 Study design
 Study setting
 Sample Size
 Sampling Technique
 Gantt Chart (tentative timeline of your research)
 Data Collection Procedure
 Statistical Analyses
 Results?
 Discussion?
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Protocol Writing
the structure

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Scientific & Ethics Committee Clearance
 The Research Protocol is subjected to scrutiny for
scientific soundness in the Scientific Committee and
in case of approval, Institutional Review Board (IRB)
ensures ethical aspects are taken care of.

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 Typical IRB
approval Letter

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Data Collection
 Process of collecting required information to meet
the research objectives

 If involves human participants, informed consent

must be taken in case of adults and assent in case
of minors

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Analyses
 Involves cleaning, coding, processing and analyzing
the collected data
 Descriptive and Inferential analyses

 Summarizing the findings

 Based on results you reject or fail to reject the Null

Hypothesis

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Report Writing
 Thesis/Dissertation
 Ideally there is only results and discussion to be
added in the protocol if the research was conducted
exactly as planned

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Dissemination of Knowledge
 Thesis
 Research Articles
 Conference papers
 Poster presentations (Annual Research Day)

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THE PROCESS REVISITED

AREA of
Protocol
Data
Research Collection

Refined Research
TOPIC of Question Data
Research (Objectives & Analyses
Hypothesis)

Crude Research Literature Report

Question Review Writing

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References

 http://libweb.surrey.ac.uk/library/skills/Introduction
%20to%20Research%20and%20Managing%20Informa
tion%20Leicester/page_61.htm
 Research methodology Health for Professionals : by
Goyal , RC.
 http://quizlet.com/20248761/educ-6114-chapter-9-
flash-cards/#

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