Research Methods Final

Two clinicians disagree about whether patients should rest their foot on a footstool after knee-replacement surgery. Evidence-based practitioners might best resolve the disagreement by

Conducting action research comparing footstools with no footstools on recovery from knee-replacement surgery

Reading every peer reviewed article they can find reporting Level 1 or Level II studies about post-operative care for knee replacement

Reading clinical guidelines for post-operative care of knee-replacement patients, based on recent empirical evidence

Telling some knee-replacement patients to use a footstool while telling other knee-replacment patients not to use a footstool, and later comparing the patients recovery rates.

What is the main reason that case series designs are classified as low-level (Level IV) evidence for intervention studies on the NHMRC scale?

Case series examine only patients with the disease, omitting control subjects without the disease

Case series lack a no-treatment control group.

Subjects are not randomly selected for the study

Peer-reviewed journals normally refuse to publish case series, leading to publication bias

What statement is used to evaluate the reporting quality of a systematic review as defined by the in the NHMRC (2009) levels of evidence?

PRISMA - systemic

STARD - diagnostic

Any of these statements could be used to evaluate the reporting quality of a systematic reviews because any type of study can be reviewed systematically

CONSORT

What is the major design weakness with an intervention study that has a post-test but not pre-test?

The study cannot detect change

There is no way of knowing whether participants are suitable for the study

Post-test alone cannot reveal group differences

The study could not detect affects, even with a placebo group

What is a major disadvantage of a randomised controlled experiment over a quasi-experiment design?

Improved external validity, because the treatment and control are more likely to be representative of the population

Ascertainment bias is eliminated

The treatment group and the control group are more likely

Randomised controlled trials are always double blinded whereas quasi experiments are only single blinded, or not blinded at all

People who work with computers may, after many years, say their vision is getting worse. They blame computers for their diminishing sight. The real reason could be that vision deteriorates with age in this scenario, the person’s history of computer use and their age are:

Confounded

Biased

Spurious

Causal

Which of the following is measured on a continuous scale?

Differed scores, post-test something pre-test

Diagnosis, cause or control

Study group, treatment, placebo and no intervention control

B and C

Which of these possibilities could be explained by statistical regression to the mean (the correct answer is actually true in the real world)

Parents with average intelligence are likely to have children who are more intelligent or slightly less intelligent than they are

Highly intelligent parents are likely to have children who are slightly less intelligent than the parents

Highly intelligent parents are likely to have children who are slightly more intelligent than the parents

Parents with average intelligence are likely to have children whose intelligence is also average

Which of these sampling methods is the best way to reduce the risk of selection bias

Find 100 people in the population who are similar in every way

Find 1000 volunteers from the population

Randomly sample 500 people from the population

Randomly sample 50 males and 50 females from the population

You are testing the quality of apples. The fruit shop has a display of apple in five varieties: royal gala, fuji, pink lady, bonza and granny smith. How might you select a STRATIFIED RANDOM sample from ** of the apples

Select apples from anywhere in the display so that high, medium and low quality apples are equally represented. Then randomly order chosen apples within each variety

Randomly select apples from each variety

Put on a blindfold and choose an apple. Remove the blindfold, and from that chosen apple select every 5th apple row by row along the display

Randomly select apples from anywhere in the display. Then sort the selected apples into groups according to their variety.

A basketball coach tests a training method aimed at helping players to jump higher. Fifty players are randomly assigned to a training group and another 50 players to a no-training control group. The poste test measure is jump height in centimeters. Before the study, the coach decides that at least a 2 centimetre increase in average jump height is needed for the training to be considered worthwhile. Anything less than 2 centimetres wont improve a basketballers performance. Table 4 shows the post test results. There was no pre test. Assume no validity threats

What is the most appropriate conclusion from Table 4?

The p value is too small to show that the training was effective

The descriptive and inferential statistics in Table 4 give the same information

Although the treatment effect is statistically significant, the training will not bring worthwhile improvements to basketballers performance

The treatment effect is statistically significant, so the training should be adopted as regular practice to improve basketballers’ performance

What is a commonly alleged limitation of qualitative research?

Limited ability for valid generalization of the results

Excessive influences of the researchers values on results

Limited support for causal inferences

All of the above

What is one of the major ideas of the interpretative paradigm?

Human beings are nothing more than puppets controlled by natural laws

A statement has no meaning unless its truth can be demonstrated

Reality is created internally, within the individual, rather than discovered as something external

Science is politically motivated

In phenomenology, what does temporality mean?

Bracketing everyday thoughts in order to experience a higher level of consciousness

Recognition that epistemology and ontology describe distinct modes of consciousness

Recognition that consciousness is always directed towards something

Recognition that consciousness is always experienced in relation to time

The qualitative research methodology that describes the experiences of distinct societies or cultural groups within a society is…

Grounded theory

Symbolic interactionism

Ethnography

Logical positivism

Which of the following happens first during a university research project?

The funding application

The research proposal

The ethics application

Initial contact with subjects to see whether they want to participate

Quality assurance in health care resembles evidence-based practice because both activities…

Use empirical evidence to improve outcomes.

Rely only on peer reviewed evidence.

Involve basic and explanatory rather than applied or confirmatory research

Identify patient satisfaction as the most important benchmark

In quality assurance, reducing costs while maintaining quality will specifically increase healthcare…

Efficacy – how well health care and technology works

Efficiency

Effectiveness – how well health care is achieved in real world setting

Equity – fairness in distribution and allocation

Which of these ethical principles relating to research and clinical practice is most consistent with ultitarianism?

Peoples dignity must be respected

Do no harm – deontology – do it because it’s right – no ifs or buts

Freedom to withdraw from research or treatment without giving reason

Benefits should outweigh risks

Which of the following would a human research ethics committee normally expect researches to do when applying for ethical approval for a project?

Identify the journal that will publish the results

Identify the funding sources for the project

State whether the researchers are deontologists or telotologists

Supply the committee with names of all participants

In what way are the Privacy Act (1988), the PPIP Act (1998) and the HPIP Act (2002) the same?

All three acts are New South Wales Parliamentary legislation

Their definition of personal information includes information from which an individual person’s identity is apparent or can reasonably be ascertained

All three Acts protect the privacy of businesses and government departments as well as all individual persons, dead or alive.

All three Acts classify photographs, fingerprints, retinal prints, DNA, tissue samples and health-related information as sensitive information.

Although Milgram obedience to authority experiments and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison study were unethical research, what important message could they have?

Clinicians are all too willing to exploit their authority over their patients

Clinical procedures should be reviewed by research ethics committee in the same way as research proposals are reviewed

Clinical practice is unethical if there is any risk of harm

People may behave unethically even when they have good intentions

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