Theory and Research Questions

Previously, we considered theories and that they should lead to predictions. Now we take it to the next step and use those predictions to develop research questions. We examined the patient-by-treatment-context interactive model of Christensen and Johnson (2002), and we predicted it is the primary health provider (PHP) who is the determining factor, so if the PHP is understanding of a patient's nontraditional medical beliefs, it should increase vaccination use.  Now we can develop a research question based on the prediction.

RQ1: What is the relationship between PHP's support of patients' nontraditional medical beliefs and patients' use of vaccinations?

To use this research question we would need to have a way to measure "PHP's support of patients' nontraditional medical beliefs" and also a way to measure the patients' beliefs. If you are able to find such measurement tools in the literature, great! You could do a quantitative study measuring PHPs' support, patients' beliefs, and the actual use of vaccinations. However, let us say you could not find such measurement tools. You have a couple of choices: 1) develop your own measures or 2) do a qualitative study to examine the opinions of both patients and PHPs. This last choice would require two new research questions.

RQ2: What are PHPs' opinions about patients' nontraditional medical beliefs and vaccinations?

RQ3: What are patients', with nontraditional medical beliefs, opinions about their PHPs and vaccinations?

Here is how we went about this process:

Literature review      led to       Theory      led to      Predictions

led to   Research Questions          led to             Research Method

Notice, I did not start with the method, rather I let the theory, predictions, and research questions determine the appropriate research method to use.

Next time I will post an updated blog index. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Welcome to fall!

Today begins fall quarter, a new school year, new dissertation classroom, new quarter plan, and a new beginning! How do you want this quarter to go with your dissertation? Take a few minutes to think that through as you complete your term plan. How much realistically can you complete? How can you help yourself make real progress? Begin the term plan by thinking when you won’t be able to work on your paper- when do you have commitments? Mark those in the plan. Mark time for holidays.

Now take each week and think about how much time can you spend on writing, reading, etc. Set yourself something to complete each week, for example writing 2 pages or reading 3 articles. Go through the plan week by week and see where that leads you in terms of a final goal. Discuss your goal with your chair and set if he or she agrees with your plan. Remember that this is a 5 credit course – so you should be spending 20 hours a week on it!

Want a little more help this quarter? Get my book on Amazon, it takes you step by step through the dissertation process:  Finding Your Way to a Ph.D.: Advice from the Dissertation Mentor

Next time I will return to theories and look at their relationship with research questions. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Putting Theories to Work

As an example in order to think things through theories, I will be using the patient-by-treatment-context interactive model of Christensen and Johnson (2002). The model proposes that the relationship between patient characteristics (e.g., personality and beliefs) and patient adherence (e.g., preventative care) is moderated by the treatment context (e.g., primary health provider characteristics and behavior). I like to draw things out so I get a better understanding of it.

We can begin tweaking some of the variables and think about how they would be affected in the model. For example, we could consider patients who do not have faith in modern medicine and the issue of vaccination use. The model suggests it is the primary health provider (PHP) who is the determining factor, so if the PHP was understanding of the patient's beliefs, according to the model, it should increase vaccination use.  This is how we went about this process so far:

Literature review      led to                 Theory      led to       Predictions

Next time we will welcome fall. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Theory and Research Design

One of the common issues students have when they are beginning to think about doing research is how all of the pieces, which are necessary, fit together. Do you begin with the research design and try to find a study to fit it? What is the deal with theories, where do they fit into the thinking? There actually is a way to clarify these pieces. Let us begin even broader by considering reviewing the literature. What does that mean? It means finding recent articles on your general topic of interest and beginning to read. Notice what theories the authors discuss when talking about the topic. After you have read 10 articles or so on the topic, stop and evaluate. Are there consistent issues mentioned? What theories were discussed; did the authors make predictions for their study based on the theory? If you are not seeing any predictions or discussions about how the theory is impacted by the new findings, you need to look for a new theory. It is important that you are able to make predictions based on the theory you will finally use.

As an example, say you have narrowed the search down to two theories. It is time to go back to the library and find some review articles using those theories. When you have read those, you should have good understanding of the theories and how they relate to your topic of interest. Think about the variables other researchers have used, which are related to your topic and how the theory suggests the variables should interact.

Next time I will examine theories. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Research questions

What are research questions? These are general questions about the topic in which you are interested and they should include your variables of interest. They are not interview questions and they are not hypotheses. Research question(s) are the basis of your dissertation. Everything done in your dissertation should relate to the research question(s). Your research questions will generate hypotheses in quantitative studies and provide the framework for methodology in qualitative studies. A few examples:

The research question should not be

Too narrow (“What is the mean number of …”)

Too broad (“What is the effect of discipline on children?”)

A question that is not researchable (“Is helping behavior selfishly or unselfishly motivated?”)

A yes-no question (Does parental divorce cause depression in children?)

While this gives us an idea of what a research question is, it doesn’t help us form them. One way to develop research questions is to read the literature in your area of interest, and then to brainstorm (in your research journal) ideas about your topic and how variables might interact. Let's use an example of older adults (people over 65). I am interested in their satisfaction with their physicians. What might be factors that would affect the interaction? Perhaps length of time with the physician, maybe the physician's expression of empathy, and perhaps the age and gender of the physician could be factors. So let's write some possible research questions about these:

            How does the amount of time spent with the physician affect patient satisfaction?

            How does physician empathy affect patient satisfaction?

            How does the physician's age and gender influence patient satisfaction?

Some things to notice about these questions, they are not hypotheses (an hypothesis might be: as time with physician increases, patient satisfaction increases): they do not predict how we hypothesize the results will come out. They lead to some issues related to my research method- I will need a way to determine patient satisfaction and physician empathy.

Next time I will consider theory and research design. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

IRB- Thinking about Issues

Let’s work through a fake study and think through some of the issues in the research methods. Let’s say we want to look at car shopping decisions and the relationship with self-efficacy (self-confidence). The plan is to do a mixed method study, we’ll use a standardized, brief self-efficacy survey and briefly interview the customer (What was your decision at the dealership regarding buying a car? What led you to make the decision that you did?). We decide that we want to use a local Nissan dealership, so first we approach the general manager, John Smith, and see if there is some way to make this work. John is open to the dealership participating but does not want us to interfere with customers in their decision making process. We initially discuss having everyone that speaks with a salesperson complete the 5 question survey. A brief consent form will be included and ask whether a researcher can contact them by phone and asks for their name and phone number. We will then call each customer that agrees and ask our questions.

What are issues we need to consider? First we need a letter from John Smith stating everything that his people will and won’t do, and any information that the dealership will be provide to us (so let’s wait on getting the letter until we have finalized the details). Second, we want to make it very clear that the researchers are not affiliated in any way with the dealership, that the person is not required to participate, and no one will treat them differently regardless of their choice in participating. One issue the IRB is going to have is with the salesperson giving out the survey, which gives the appearance of the dealership sponsoring the study. Is there a way around this? Perhaps at the end of the salesperson interaction he or she could give them a flyer with a link to an online survey (and the consent form) on survey monkey? As a researcher we need to consider that this is going to lower our participant rate, but will make it more acceptable to the IRB. We will probably have to continue the study longer and will need to mention this issue in the limitation section of the paper.

Let’s consider our study’s inclusion criteria. People may participate if they are 18 years and older and if they are able to read English, which is the language of the survey. We should ask their age at the beginning of the survey. The exclusion criteria are being under 18 and unable to read English.

What other demographics might be a factor in purchasing a car? Perhaps marital status, having children, sharing decision making, employment, income per year? We would want to check the literature, make a decision, and add these into the survey. How will we determine who is interviewed? We will need to preset a rule for this. It could be the first 10 people who agree to be interviewed or if we think marital status is important we could say the first 5 with a partner/ spouse and the first 5 single/ divorced people who volunteer will be selected. The important thing is to select the criteria in advance and stick to it.

Here is our current method:

1. Get permission letter from John Smith

2. Prepare flyer for salespeople with a link in survey monkey

3. Prepare survey monkey with a consent form, the survey, and ask if person can be contacted for an interview, and have them give their email or phone number.

4. Have a brief meeting with salespeople explaining the study and that we would like them to give a flyer to every customer, whether they buy a car or not.

5. Wait to see if we get participants

6. Contact those willing to be interviewed

7. Call for interviews, record interviews

8. Transcribe interviews

9. Analyze qualitative data, developing coding

10. Download survey data from survey monkey

11. Analyze survey results compared to coding 

After a month, we only have three participants! We need to rethink our method, some possible options: we could go to the dealership and hand out the flyer personally as the person is leaving the dealership, sometimes the personal contact will help. We could increase the number of dealerships, each will require that we go through the first 4 steps listed above. Whatever, our final decision we will need to complete a “Change of Procedure” form for the IRB (available on their web site).

A few final thoughts on the IRB process, you may need to go through several revisions of your methods. Work through each of the IRB’s comments and think them through. If you can’t figure out a solution, ask for a conference call with the IRB and your chair and they will brainstorm with you. Again, always be professional in your interactions, they are not trying to delay your progress. They just want your study to be the best one possible that protects you and your participants.

Next time, we will discuss research questions. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Questions and Lack of Knowledge

I have been examining Marquardt's (2005) stated reasons that people do not ask questions. Today, we will take a look at his final reason, a lack of the skills to ask them. You may have experienced the situation in which you are not sure how to even ask a question about a topic. The topic may seem too large to know where to begin. This is often the case when students begin a new area of study, the terminology may be too foreign to phrase the question appropriately. In this situation, it is often helpful to write down initial questions and attempt to find the answers on your own, paying particular attention to the language used. Then ask questions of your faculty mentor. If you find that, the answers do not make things any clearer, ask for resources so you can learn more. Take control of your learning, fill in the gaps of your knowledge so you know the right questions to ask and how to find the answers.

Next time we will think about issues with the IRB. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Marquardt, M. (2005). Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask. Jossey-Bass.