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Developing and Analyzing Research
QuestionsSearch Strategies for
Environmental Health Research
Objectives
Review the stases method for refining scope of a research question
Apply the stases method to assigned topics and map questions to potential resources
Review two documented strategies for assessing and analyzing research questions: FINER and PICOT
Apply these strategies to actual research questions
Use controlled vocabularies to identify relevant terms to use in a search
The Stases Approach
Any arguer who wants to enter an ongoing public or academic debate needs first to identify what points have been agreed upon, what points have been in contention, and which of them to address. The standard but often bewildering advice to ‘narrow the topic’ reflects this need to specify an issue. (From Fahnestock, Jeanne and Marie Secor. “Classical Rhetoric: The Art of Argumentation.” Argument Revisited; Argument Redefined: Negotiating Meaning in the Composition Classroom. Eds. Barbara Emmel, Paula Resch, and Deborah Tenney. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 1996. 97-123.)
See Hunter Library’s “Research Toolkit” for more: http://library.hunter.cuny.edu/research-toolkit/faculty-guide/stases-research-method
The Six Stases
Existence: Does a problem exist?
Definition: How do we characterize the problem?
Cause: What caused the problem?
Value: Is it good or bad? Moral/immoral? Effective/ineffective?
Action: What should we do about the problem?
Jurisdiction: Who should decide what we do about the problem?
Exercise: Applying the Stases
Draft a question for your topic that corresponds to each one of the six stases.
Identify an information resource that addresses each of your questions.
Submit your work.
Assessing and Analyzing Research Questions
FINER: a strategy for assessing the value of a research question
PICOT: a strategy for analyzing the content of a research question in order to develop search strategies
FINER
Feasibility: number of participants, technical expertise, cost, scope
Interest: Motivation!
Novelty: confirms, refutes, or extends previous findings
Ethicality: must not pose unacceptable physical risk or invasion of privacy
Relevance: connects to clinical practice or health policy, advances knowledge, drives future research
PICOT
Population
Intervention
Comparison
Outcome
Temporality
Exercise: Applying PICOT and FINER
Apply PICOT and FINER to example research objectives
Submit your work
Bibliography: PICOT and FINER
Hulley SB, Cummings SR, Browner WS, Grady DG, Newman TB. Conceiving the research question. Designing Clinical Research 2nd ed Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. 2001:335.
Richardson WS, Wilson MC, Nishikawa J, Hayward RS. The well-built clinical question: a key to evidence-based decisions. ACP J Club. 1995;123(3):A12-A13.
Rios LP, Ye C, Thabane L. Association between framing of the research question using the PICOT format and reporting quality of randomized controlled trials. BMC Medical Research Methodology. 2010;10(1):11. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-10-11.
Schardt C, Adams MB, Owens T, Keitz S, Fontelo P. Utilization of the PICO framework to improve searching PubMed for clinical questions. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making. 2007;7(1):16. doi:10.1186/1472-6947-7-16.
Bibliography: Example Research Questions
Factor-Litvak P, Insel B, Calafat AM, et al. Persistent Associations between Maternal Prenatal Exposure to Phthalates on Child IQ at Age 7 Years. PLoS ONE. 2014;9(12):e114003. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0114003.
Fathabadi N, Vasheghani Farahani M, Moradi M, Hadadi B. Estimates of the occupational exposure to tenorm in the phosphoric acid production plant in Iran. Radiat Prot Dosimetry. 2012;151(3):600-603. doi:10.1093/rpd/ncs021.
Fisk WJ, Lei-Gomez Q, Mendell MJ. Meta-analyses of the associations of respiratory health effects with dampness and mold in homes. Indoor Air. 2007;17(4):284-296. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0668.2007.00475.x.
Marchand A, Aranda-Rodriguez R, Tardif R, Nong A, Haddad S. Human Inhalation Exposures to Toluene, Ethylbenzene and M-Xylene and Physiologically based Pharmacokinetic Modeling of Exposure Biomarkers in Exhaled Air, Blood and Urine. Toxicol Sci. 2015:kfv009. doi:10.1093/toxsci/kfv009.
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