Introduction to: Research planning
The first stage of research involves the detailed planning of the project. The plan for what is to occur in the project is written up in a document called the research protocol. Before the research project may proceed, the protocol is examined by ethics committees and funding bodies to ensure that it conforms with general methodological and ethical principles. The three chapters of Section 2 aim to outline the basic considerations for the successful preparation of a research protocol.
The primary reason for carrying out a research project is to obtain empirical evidence that will advance theory and practice in the health sciences. Before all else, we must be sure that we are asking the right questions, that is, raising issues and problems which are central to progress in contemporary health care. We must convince the critical reader that our aims or the hypotheses which we are attempting to resolve are of central importance. Asking the right research questions depends on being creative, for example identifying previously ignored patterns in the data, or the construction of novel theories that predict new, as yet unobserved phenomena. Of course, we are not suggesting that researchers are geniuses, or that only brilliant, ground-breaking research is funded. Much important research is carried out by perfectly ordinary men and women who are interested in their patients and their problems, who have a good knowledge of their professional practices and who understand research methods.
To justify the research proposal it is necessary to write a ‘literature review’. The literature review is a summary and critical evaluation of previous research and theory relevant to the problem we are intending to investigate. In this way the literature review provides both a conceptual background for our proposal and justifies the need for further empirical evidence by identifying ‘gaps’ in our knowledge.
The proposed research may be descriptive, for example collecting information concerning health needs of a community and/or the impact of illness or injury on a group of patients. In Chapter 3, non-experimental research strategies are described. Non-experimental research which includes both quantitative and qualitative surveys (Section 3) aims to provide a clear picture or description of the health of individuals, groups or whole communities. Experimental research strategies are appropriate when we are testing hypotheses about the causes of illness, and when we attempt to gain control over extraneous variables which may influence treatment outcomes. The notions of causality and control are central for health research and are explored in Chapter 4. Of course, when we write a research protocol, we must be sure that we select the appropriate research strategy.
No research can proceed unless it is judged to be ethical by an appropriate committee. A research proposal is judged ethical if it conforms with our rules and values concerning caregiving. These rules and values are made explicit in documents representing the standards of professional groups and of institutions (e.g. hospitals, universities and research councils). The research protocol must be described in sufficient detail so that a decision can be made as to whether any harm might occur to participants in the research project.
Economic considerations, or the availability of resources, also have a strong influence on research planning. For example, you may have designed a qualitative research project which involves 100 ‘in-depth’ interviews with persons suffering from a disorder. Say you have only one year and a very limited amount of money to complete your project. You would be advised either to reduce your sample size or, if this is not possible, change your topic. Ethics or funding committees will only approve projects which can feasibly be completed with the available resources.
The way in which samples are selected is discussed in Chapter 3. Selection of an appropriate sample is crucial for the generalizability (or external validity) of your findings. Our aim is to select a representative sample of the population but this may not always be possible in health sciences research. We need a sample size which is sufficiently large to identify the phenomena in which we are interested, but not too large or we are simply wasting resources.
Thus, research planning is a process by which we transform our ideas into well-planned, ethical and economically feasible projects, as described in a research protocol.