Introduction to Research and Statistics Cheryl R.

Peralta, MSPT, MHPEd, PTRP Objectives At the end of this session, you should be able to: o Identify the components of a research article o Explain the relationship between research objectives, study design and statistical analysis o Distinguish between types of research variables o Distinguish between different measurement scales Structure of a Research Paper o Abstract o Introduction, purpose and significance o Literature Review o Methods (Design, sample, procedures) o Results (Findings) o Discussion, and o Conclusion Research o

A systematic way of thinking, planning and understanding questions related to human behaviour

Goals of Research o To know more about our patients o To know more about the conditions that we are treating o To determine if our treatments are cost effective gain worthwhile improvement for our patients, ourselves and our funders can be improved The Research Question o All research sets out to generate new knowledge that fills a current gap o Articulating and refining the research question involves identifying: What it is that is not currently known, and What the investigation will address o Research questions generally start out broad and are narrowed over time The Research Methodology o Decide whether the study will be quantitative, qualitative, or a combination these two methodologies Qualitative Quantitative Sacketts Hierarchy of evidence What is Statistics? o Statistics A science that deals with the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of information that can be stated numerically o Biostatistics Statistics applied to the biological sciences
UST College of Rehabilitation Sciences Department of Physical Therapy

Why do we need STATISTICS? o To understand professional literature o To understand the rationale underlying research in the health sciences o To carry out research in the health sciences o To understand scientific developments in related fields Branches of Statistics o Descriptive statistics Procedures which summarize and describe the characteristics of a set of data in a clear and convenient way. o Inferential or inductive statistics Procedures which make it possible to draw inferences about a population on the basis of observations from a sample. Definitions o Population Is the universe about which an investigator wishes to draw conclusions Need not consist of people but may be a population of measurements o Sample Subset of population or the part that is actually being observed or studied. o Elementary unit or element Object or person on which a measurement is actually taken or an observation is made o Sampling unit Units which are chosen in selecting the sample, and may be made-up of nonoverlapping collection of elements or elementary units o Parameter Descriptive measure based on a population o Statistics Descriptive measure based on a sample o Variables Observable characteristic or phenomena of a person or object whereby the members of the group or set vary or differ from one another. Categories Independent variable Presumed to cause, effect, influence or stimulate the outcome Dependent variable The output, the outcome or the response variable Confounding variable Extraneous variable that is associated with both the independent and the dependent variables, and may create a spurious relationship between these two variables Effect modifiers Factors that modify the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable

UST College of Rehabilitation Sciences Department of Physical Therapy

Measurement Scales Nominal data o Are used as measures of identity where data values fit into categories o Can be measured only in terms of whether the individual items belong to some distinctively different categories, but we cannot quantify or even rank order those categories o Includes dichotomous data o Examples: gender, race, color, city Ordinal data o Reflects the rank order of individuals o No information about the size of the interval o Intervals between scale points may be uneven o Allow us to rank order the items we measure in terms of which has less and which has more of the quality represented by the variable, but still they do not allow us to say "how much more. o Examples: Likert scales Interval data o Provides numbers that reflects differences among items o Does not have absolute zero o The exact distance between two categories can be determined by the zero point is arbitrary o Allow us not only to rank order the items that are measured, but also to quantify and compare the sizes of differences between them o Examples: temperature Ratio data o Highest type of scale o Has an absolute zero o Zero point is fixed o Has magnitude, equal intervals and absolute point zero o Most measurements are in this category o Example: Kelvin scale, height, weight

UST College of Rehabilitation Sciences Department of Physical Therapy