doing it. So, in this course Mick described research thus:
Research is the art of the possible.
I always think that this is a very liberating and empowering statement. What he meant was that it is OK to do research that is as good as we can do – that is, it is good enough. Very few studies have the massive funding that is required in, for example, the testing of a potential new drug to treat cancer. We do what we can within the resources available to us. And we should do it with pride. We say what we have done, we alert people to the limitations of what we have done, and we do it. Do not be put off by thinking that ‘my study is not as good as one I have read about’. Go ahead. Do it. Be thorough and systematic and you will likely succeed. The fact that you have picked up this book shows that you are trying to be systematic.
Always remember:
You are already a natural researcher.
By being thorough and systematic you will be a ‘scientific’ researcher.
‘Research is the art of the possible.’
Overview of Research Methods
Introduction
As we have noted, some things which we can measure and attribute numerical values to fall into the category of quantitative research. Other things cannot be quantified and fall into the category of qualitative research. Some research incorporates elements of both and we refer to these approaches as mixed methods. In this chapter, we shall consider each of these in turn and then look at the different assumptions which underpin each of these approaches. So, to be crude, quantitative approaches are those which involve numbers. Qualitative approaches do not involve numbers. Remember that. It gets more complicated, but I'll explain that when we come to it in depth in later chapters. But, for now, here is a brief overview of what we will cover in the book.
All these approaches are shown in this figure and you can use this as a ‘mind map’ to negotiate the different topics covered in this book.
Quantitative Approaches
These are approaches in which we measure and count things. We use statistical methods to analyse the numerical date which we collect. These approaches fall into two categories – experimental, or interventional approaches, and observational, or non‐experimental and non‐interventional, approaches.
WARNING – Note the use of the term ‘observational’. It does not refer to observation in the sense of observing something, but means that there is no experimentation or intervention. We do not manipulate any variables or make any experimental interventions.
So, in experimental approaches, we introduce some change and then measure any effects which are thought to be ‘caused’ by that change. In observational approaches, there is no change – we measure things as they are. Let's look at the three main categories of these first.
Observational or Non‐experimental Approaches
1 Cross‐sectional studies: These are the commonest type of studies used in quantitative research. They involve taking a ‘snapshot’ of what is happening in a group or a population at a particular point in time. The most widely used approach is the survey. These are termed ‘retrospective’ studies, because what we are enquiring about has already happened – it is in the past. We shall look at these in depth later in Chapters 8 and 9.
2 Case‐control studies: Case‐control studies are commonly used in epidemiological research when we want to check what factors cause a disease that we are concerned about. These are a pleasingly neat design. We identify and recruit a group of people with a disease, then we identify and recruit a group of people who are similar in almost every respect – except that they do not have that disease. Then we measure the extent to which each group have been exposed to a suspected causal factor and measure the difference between the two groups. If the ‘Cases’ score higher than the ‘Controls’, then we conclude that the factor we are comparing them on is indeed a suspected contributory factor for that disease or condition. Neat – eh? These are also termed ‘retrospective’ studies because what we are enquiring about has already happened – it is in the past. We shall look at these in depth later in Chapter 7.
3 Cohort studies: The term cohort is a posh word for a group. It comes from the Latin ‘cohors’ which was a group of soldiers in a Roman Legion – a platoon, sort of. In cohort studies, we recruit a group of people and follow them up over a period of time. We may choose people for a specific reason or a wide range of reasons and record significant events as they arise. These are different to the last two approaches in that they are not ‘retrospective’ studies, because we are interested in what will happen – in the future. They are what we call ‘prospective’ studies. We shall look at these in depth in Chapter 6.
Experimental Approaches
1 Laboratory experiments: Most of us will remember our time in laboratories doing experiments. I remember tedious hours of work in the Chemistry labs doing titrations. You know, the sort of experiment where you have a measured amount of one chemical, A, in a beaker, and you painstakingly introduce into this – drip by boring drip – another chemical, B, from a burette … The rationale of these experimental studies is simple – you have almost complete control over the experimental environment, so that you can rule out extraneous (external) variables, such as spores that drift in the open window (as happened to Alexander Fleming – a sloppy researcher!) and you can reasonably confidently assume that any changes you record are due to the experimental variable that you have introduced. We can also use a control situation – for example, in culture studies, we would leave a petri dish with no culture for testing alongside the test dishes. Then we can identify the ‘Fleming effect’ if some external ‘contaminant’ gets in by chance and corrupts our findings.Laboratory experiments can also be conducted with animal and human ‘subjects’ or ‘participants’ and I shall go into depth on these in the Chapters 2 and 3.
2 Non‐randomised trials: These are experimental approaches (often used in drug development) in which an experiment is conducted – but there is no control situation or control group. These are covered in depth in Chapter 4.
3 Randomised control trials ( RCTs ): These are perhaps the most widely known and widely used experimental approach in medicine. Here we take the rationale of the laboratory experiment and take it beyond the laboratory. These are widely used to test the efficacy of new interventions or diagnostic tools. We recruit a group of participants and randomly allocate them to an experimental group or a control group. Those in the experimental group are given a new drug or treatment, whilst those in the control group get their standard treatment,
