Читать книгу Demystifying Research for Medical and Healthcare Students - John L. Anderson - Страница 12

I have been teaching research methods to medical, nursing, and social sciences students, and in postgraduate medicine, for over 40 years. In that time, I have realised that the prospect of learning about doing research, or doing ‘science’, terrifies a lot of people. Many have a ‘mental block’ at the thought of it. ‘Research is what scientists do and I'm not a scientist!’ So, this is where I give my first, and possibly, most important piece of advice:

‘Don't Panic!’

Can you think of the source? These words were written by Douglas Adams in 1979 … That's right! They are from his book, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and on the back of the Guide are found these immortal words. Remember them. You don't need to panic when you are learning about research. You can do it.

My goal is to de‐mystify research. I aim to help you understand research, to be able to appraise research in scholarly articles, to be able to design a research project, and to believe that you could do research yourself. This book is not intended to impress my colleagues and bewilder students. I hope that, by explaining research in a straightforward and simple manner, I can make the process of learning about and understanding research easier. I shall try to explain jargon terms wherever possible and I shall use examples of classic research as well as some of my own and that of my students. (Over the past 10 years, I have supervised over 70 masters students' dissertations to completion.) I aim to illustrate the theoretical with examples of research in practice.

The other aspect of research which frightens the heck out of learners is … that's right – the ‘S’ word – statistics. Well, I guess I have to touch on the subject, but I shall leave it to those more able than myself to cover that subject in depth. I have included some parts on data analysis, but I shall try to make these as pain‐free and understandable as possible.