research methods

Which of the following is a statistical estimate of how close to the population value a sample of a particular size is expected to be?

confidence interval

True or False? Anthropometric measurements are physiological measurements that can be quantified accurately after minimal instruction.

false

True or False? Correlational studies are a useful starting point for generating hypotheses about associations, but they are not the final word on risk factors for a disease.

false

True or False? Cross-sectional surveys measure the incidence of various exposure histories, disease states, and demographic characteristics in one well-defined population at one point in time.

false

True or False? If too many participants are recruited, the whole study will be almost worthless because the sample will not have enough statistical power to answer the study question.

false

True or False? Research ethics committees are usually composed of at least five members with similar backgrounds.

false

True or False? The five steps of the research process can vary according to the goal of the research project or according to what methods are used.

false

True or False? The goal of concept mapping is to create a long list of possible research topics.

false

True or False? The sensitivity is the proportion of people who do not have the disease who test negative with the new test.

false

True or False? A well-trained clinician can make accurate and reliable assessments of many health states that machines are unable to assess well.

true

True or False? Case definitions are essential for any outbreak investigation no matter which study approach is used to investigate the epidemic.

true

True or False? Coercion could include social pressure or requests from authority figures that make it difficult for an individual not to agree to enroll in a study.

true

True or False? Cross-sectional surveys are used to establish baseline data prior to the initiation of longitudinal studies.

true

True or False? Direct age adjustment requires knowing the exposure or disease rates by age group in each population.

true

True or False? Focus group participants are recruited through purposive sampling because they are able to provide insights about the study question.

true

True or False? If the goal of the study is to understand populations, describe patterns, or ask research questions that are not focused on causality, the best design may be a cross-sectional or cohort study.

true

True or False? If the power estimates for a study are lower than desired, the easiest way to improve the power is to increase the sample size.

true

True or False? Only a few out of every hundred calls made by random-digit dialing may yield one person willing to participate in the survey.

true

True or False? Population health involves humans as the unit of investigation, rather than focusing on molecules, genes, cells, or other smaller biological components.

true

True or False? Primary studies are often time-consuming because they require the collection of new data from participants.

true

True or False? Regardless of which analytic approach is used, the research protocol should include specific plans for promoting compliance and minimizing dropouts.

true

True or False? The Delphi method is a structured decision-making and forecasting process in which participants engaged in completing individual questionnaires.

true

True or False? The ethical principle of distributive justice seeks to ensure that the benefits and burdens of research are equitable.

true

True or False? The goal of recruiting is to maximize the participation rate among members of a sample population so as to yield a study population that is reasonably representative of the source population.

true

True or False? The medical information in patient files is not recorded for research purposes, so records are unlikely to contain all the information that researchers would like to know.

true

True or False? The only way to truly understand a study is to read the full text of the article.

true

True or False? When interpreting results of a systematic review, studies that find no statistically significant results for an item of interest are just as valuable as those that find a significant association.

true

True or False? When starting a tertiary analysis, the most important decision is the selection of a topic that is narrow enough that all the relevant publications can be acquired.

true

What type of error occurs when a study population yields a significant statistical test result even though a significant difference or association does not actually exist in the source population?

type 1 error

The standard expectation is that a study's analyses should have a power of what value or greater?

80%

At what point should the researcher identify three or more specific objectives that stem from the main study goal?

After finalizing the overarching study goal

Which of the following would be classified as a routine practice activity?

An epidemiologist working for a health department tracks down the source of an outbreak of gastroenteritis.

What type of study method is used for many of the largest studies conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?

Repeated cross-sectional survey

Which of the following typically spells out expectations and procedures for disclosing conflicts of interest, avoiding research misconduct, reporting research ethics or personal violations, and otherwise exhibiting professionalism?

Responsible conduct of research training programs

The timeline for what type of study might be very short if an entire data file and the relevant supporting documentation can be downloaded from a website?

Secondary study

Which of the following is defined as looking up every article cited by eligible articles in order to identify other articles that might be relevant but not indexed in the selected databases?

Snowballing

Which of the following is a test that measures lung function?

Spirometry

Before conducting a statistical analysis of aggregate data, the data from each population must be entered into which of the following?

Spreadsheet

Usually, what is the goal of any single research project?

To answer one well-defined question

True or False? For a research project to be considered original, it needs to have only one substantive difference from previous work.

True

True or False? Proposals for analysis of existing data may be significantly shorter than proposals for new data collection.

True

True or False? Questions derived from practice often point toward an unmet demand for needs assessments, program evaluations, and clinical effectiveness studies.

True

True or False? Recruiting based on exposure status makes retrospective and prospective cohort studies the optimal study approaches for uncommon exposures.

True

True or False? The senior author, usually the primary research supervisor for a student or research group, is often listed as the last author even if he or she was heavily involved in all aspects of the work and might otherwise be the second author.

True

True or False? When the entire 95% confidence interval is less than 1, the odds ratio is statistically significant and the exposure is deemed to be protective in the study population.

True

What type of table is used in case-control studies to compare two dichotomous (yes/no) variables?

Two-by-two (2x2) table

A needs assessment answers which of the following questions?

What is the health status of this population?

What type of randomization randomly assigns groups of people to an intervention group and other groups of people to a control group?

Block randomization

Some case series follow patients for days, months, or even years. In this type of study approach, the case series functionally becomes what type of study?

Cohort study

The major advantage of what type of survey is that they eliminate the need for later data entry?

Computer-assisted surveys

Which of the following is sketched out using boxes and arrows that illustrate the various relationships that will be evaluated during the study?

Conceptual framework

Which of the following is a major function of an ethics review board?

Conduct continuing review of long-term research projects

Under which paradigm do researchers have a relativist perspective that considers reality for each individual to be a function of that person's lived experiences?

Constructivism

What type of studies seek to recruit a study population that is representative of a well-defined larger population?

Cross-sectional studies

Which of the following is the first step when designing an experimental study?

Decide on the intervention and eligibility criteria

Which of the following would be the first step in conducting a cross-sectional survey?

Define a source population

Which process of qualitative data analysis uses the tools of linguistics to analyze the written, spoken, or nonverbal language used by participants?

Discourse analysis

What type of study revolves around a thorough review of existing literature?

Tertiary study

For continuous variables and other variables with responses that can be plotted on a number line, which of the following is used to calculate the correlation?

Pearson correlation coefficient

Which of the following is the highest cost associated with interviews?

Personnel

Which approach to gather and interpret qualitative data seeks to understand how participants understand, interpret, and find meaning in their own life experiences and feelings?

Phenomenolgy

Which of the following are the two main threats to the validity of a meta-analysis?

Poor quality of included studies and publication bias

Which of the following examines where a new test is good at predicting the presence of disease?

Positive likelihood ratio test

Which of the following is defined as the assurance that individuals get to choose what information they reveal about themselves?

Privacy

What type of study design should be used to investigate an exposure that is relatively uncommon but a source of exposed individuals is available?

Prospective cohort study

Which of the following is defined as the percentage of members of a population who die of any condition during a specified time period?

Mortality rate

Which of the following points toward the selection of key indicators that would provide evidence for the success of the intervention?

PICOT

Which of the following is usually required when an intervention will be tested in individuals or a community, data will be collected through interaction with individuals, or identifiable private information will be collected?

Full review of the research proposal

An individual who is given honorary coauthorship without having significantly contributed to the work is referred to as which of the following?

Gift authorship

Because many peer-reviewed journals are not included in the databases, especially journals in languages other than English, which search engine may be helpful for identifying additional relevant abstracts?

Google Scholar

Recording responses to open-ended questions verbatim without rephrasing, paraphrasing, "correcting," or interpreting them is an example of what type of characteristic of well-trained interviewers?

Honest

Which statistic is reported as a percentage from 0% to 100%, where higher percentages indicate a greater presence of heterogeneity?

I 2 statistic

In what manner are authors generally listed on a manuscript?

In order according to contribution to the project

What type of statement provides essential information about research projects to potential research participants so that they can make a thoughtful decision about whether to enroll in a study?

Informed consent

Critical reading involves asking a series of questions about what aspect of a study in order to ascertain how well a particular study was designed, conducted, interpreted, and reported and to assess how likely it is that the resulting paper presents the truth about a particular research question in a particular population at a particular place and time?

Internal validity

A valid study will have a value of kappa that is close to which of the following?

1

True or False? If new data will be collected, the researcher has great freedom in selecting study topics and can easily recruit an adequate number of participants.

False

True or False? If the plan is to synthesize current knowledge by conducting a literature review, the researcher must be prepared to track down the abstracts of all relevant articles.

False

True or False? Studies that measure individuals randomly sampled from the same populations at different points in time are using a cohort study approach.

False

True or False? The senior author must be heavily involved in the day-to-day details of the study and meet authorship criteria by providing clarity and direction along the way and by providing critical feedback on the manuscript.

False

True or False? The variables used as matching criteria must be considered as exposures during analysis.

False

Longitudinal studies use what type of population in which all participants start the study at the same time and no one is permitted to join later?

Fixed population

Studies that can be completed within what time frame may not require further review by the research ethics committee after initial approval?

1 year

What commonly used type of cross-sectional study asks participants about their knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, practices, and behaviors?

KAP survey

Which of the following may be helpful for identifying the presence of a disease or markers for a disease?

Laboratory analysis of biological specimens

Which of the following is a key characteristic to watch out for when performing a case series study?

Lack of generalizability

Which of the following, related to the candidate question, will assist the researcher in determining what is already known about the topic and what new information a new study could contribute?

Literature review

Participants of what kind of study are recruited based on membership in a well-defined source population?

Longitudinal cohort study

Which database is sponsored by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and features only journals that have applied for inclusion and passed through a review process?

MEDLINE

On a scatterplot used to illustrate correlation, when the points are not exactly linear but a line for trend can be drawn through them, the correlation is said to be which of the following?

Moderate

What type of matching approach is common in genetic studies that link each case to a genetic sibling or another close genetic relative for analysis?

Matched-pairs matching

What database, developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, can be helpful for identifying the full extent of a research area and for narrowing the scope of a research area?

MeSh (Medical Subject Headings Database)

Most researchers serve as what type of coauthors before moving into the lead author role for the first time?

Middle coauthors

Which of the following is the measure of association that readers will expect to be reported for a case-control study?

Odds ratio

Secondary data collection might become labor intensive if which of the following have to be retrieved, read, coded, and entered into a database?

Old hospital charts