Research Methodology for Medical Students: Definitions, Types of Research, Variables and Proposal Writing

A research methodology session for medical students that opens with the definitions of research from Tuckman, Drew and Best and Kahn and the five summary characteristics - systematic, logical, empirical, reductive and replicable - then the purpose of research, its relevance to medicine and the terms every proposal uses: population, sample, sampling methods, variables, hypothesis and data. Research is classified by purpose, by approach and by design, with quantitative and categorical variables and a case-study design worked through a county-hospital study area. The closing sections take the proposal itself - title, abstract, introduction, problem statement, objectives, justification, literature review, methodology, data collection and analysis, references in Vancouver style and the annexes.