The objective of this course is to teach students to develop a clinical research proposal that will be the basis for the required Clinical Research Project (CRP). The student is aided in locating and framing her/his research problem. The course then steps through the general preparation of the research proposal, including introduction, statement of the problem and purpose of the study, hypotheses or guiding questions, significance of the study, (preliminary) survey of the literature, research design and methodology, basic assumptions, limitations and delimitations, bibliography, APA style, and regulations on research with human subjects. An overview of qualitative research methodologies is also included.
Readings
Alon, U. (September 25, 2009). How to choose a good scientific problem. Molecular Cell, 25(6), 726-728. (pdf)
Argosy IRB Handbook
Bem, D. J. (2003). Writing the empirical journal article. In J. Darley, M. Zanna, & H. Roediger, III (Eds.), The Compleat Academic: A career guide (2nd ed.) (pp. 185-219). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. (pdf)
Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112(2), 155-159. (pdf)
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175-191. (pdf)
Forscher, B.K. (1963, letter). Chaos in the brickyard. Science, 142, 339. (pdf)
Kazdin, A. E. (2003) Methodology: What it is and why it is so important. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.) Methodological Issues & Strategies in Clinical Research (3rd ed.) (pp. 5 - 22). Washington, D. C.: American Psychological Association. (pdf)
McGuire, W. J. (1997) Creative hypothesis generating in psychology: Some useful heuristics. Annual Review of Psychology, 48, 1-30. (pdf)
Platt, J.R. (1964). Strong inference. Science, 146, 347-353. (pdf)
Randall, L. (2011, October 3). How science can lead the way. Time, 178(13), 20. (pdf)
Schwartz, M. A. (2008). The importance of being stupid in scientific research. Journal of Cell Science, 121, 1771. (pdf)
Trout, J. D. (2004). The philosophical legacy of Meehl (1978): Confirmation theory, theory quality, and quantitative epistemology. Applied & Preventive Psychology: Current Scientific Perspectives, 11(1), 73-76. (pdf)
Links
A link to a page on "The Daily Routines of Famous Writers"
A quote by Danny Kahneman, the first psychologist to win a Noble Prize (prize lecture).
Talk of the Nation: Why Ignorance Trumps Knowledge in Scientific Pursuit