Methods of Dissemination

Common methods of dissemination include:

 Publishing program or policy briefs

 Publishing project findings in national journals and statewide publications

 Presenting at national conferences and meetings of professional associations

 Presenting program results to local community groups and other local stakeholders

 Creating and distributing program materials, such as flyers, guides, pamphlets and DVDs

 Creating toolkits of training materials and curricula for other communities

 Sharing information through social media or on an organization's website

 Summarizing findings in progress reports for funders

 Disseminating information on an organization's website

 Discussing project activities on the local radio

 Publishing information in the local newspaper

 Issuing a press release

 Hosting health promotion events at health fairs and school functions

Creating a simple random sample

To create a simple random sample, there are six steps: (a) defining the population; (b) choosing

your sample size; (c) listing the population; (d) assigning numbers to the units; (e) finding

random numbers; and (f) selecting your sample.

STEP ONE - Define the population

In our example, the population is the 10,000 students at the single university. The population is

expressed as N. Since we are interested in all of these university students, we can say that our

sampling frame is all 10,000 students. If we were only interested in female university students,

for example, we would exclude all males in creating our sampling frame, which would be much

less than 10,000 students.

STEP TWO - Choose your sample size

Let's imagine that we choose a sample size of 200 students. The sample is expressed as n. This

number was chosen because it reflects the limit of our budget and the time we have to distribute

our questionnaire to students. However, we could have also determined the sample size we

needed using a sample size calculation, which is a particularly useful statistical tool. This may

have suggested that we needed a larger sample size; perhaps as many as 400 students.

STEP THREE - List the population

To select a sample of 200 students, we need to identify all 10,000 students at the university. If

you were actually carrying out this research, you would most likely have had to receive

permission from Student Records (or another department in the university) to view a list of all

students studying at the university.

STEP FOUR - Assign numbers to the units

We now need to assign a consecutive number from 1 to N, next to each of the students. In our

case, this would mean assigning a consecutive number from 1 to 10,000 (i.e., N = 10,000; the

population of students at the university).

STEP FIVE - Find random numbers

Next, we need a list of random numbers before we can select the sample of 200 students from

the total list of 10,000 students. These random numbers can either be found using random

number tables or a computer program that generates these numbers for you.

STEP SIX - Select your sample

Finally, we select which of the 10,000 students will be invited to take part in the research. In this

case, this would mean selecting 200 random numbers from the random number table.

Imagine the first three numbers from the random number table were:

0011 (the 11th student from the numbered list of 10,000 students)

9292 (the 9,292nd student from the list)

2001 (the 2,001st student from the list)

We would select the 11th, 9,292nd and 2,001st students from our list to be part of the sample. We

keep doing this until we have all 200 students that we want in our sample.
The ethical best practices that govern a typical research process

 Minimising the risk of harm

 Obtaining informed consent

 Protecting anonymity and confidentiality

 Avoiding deceptive practices

 Providing the right to withdraw

Importance of applying ethics in research

 They promote the aims of research, such as expanding knowledge.

 They support the values required for collaborative work, such as mutual respect and fairness.

This is essential because scientific research depends on collaboration between researchers

and groups.

 They mean that researchers can be held accountable for their actions. Many researchers are

supported by public money, and regulations on conflicts of interest, misconduct, and research

involving humans or animals are necessary to ensure that money is spent appropriately.

 They ensure that the public can trust research. For people to support and fund research, they

have to be confident in it.

 They support important social and moral values, such as the principle of doing no harm to

others.

How literature review is structured according to UMI guidelinelines

 Introduction

 Theoretical review

 Conceptual review

 Review of Related Literature

 Empirical Studies

 gap in knowledge

Importance of literature review IN research process

 Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem

being studied.

 Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.

 Identify new ways to interpret prior research.

 Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.

 Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.

 Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.

 Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.

 Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].
Challenges likely to be encountered in review of literature

 Lack of referencing- some researcher rarely note down the reference in their work while

reading. This results to spending a lot of time in library tracking down the references to

all quoted source of information.

 Lack of documentation-some researchers read articles without writing them until they

have finished reading. These are sometimes reserved to omitting important points.

 Large quantities of studies to be reviewed-some researchers attempt to read and review

all materials related to the topic and this is impossible. Literature review is not summary

of all published work that relates to one study but survey of most relevant of significant

work.

 Poor presentation-some researchers creates too many paragraphs in their work by treating

each article in a separate paragraph. This makes the work disjointed particularly if

separate paragraph are addressing a point. The researcher should ensure similar points are

grouped together.

 Lack of critique- some researchers blindly accept research findings and interpretations

without critically examining all aspects of research designs and analysis. One should

critically analyse the work pointing out contrary findings and alternative interpretations.

Benefits of using primary sources in literature

 Develop critical thinking skills: Using primary source require you to be both critical and

analytical as you read and examine documents and objects.

 To acquire empathy for the human condition and deeper understanding: Primary sources

bring you into contact with the firsthand accounts of events. They help you relate in a
 personal way to events of the past and promote a deeper understanding of history as a

series of human events.

 To consider different points of view in analysis: History is often perceived as a series of

facts, dates, and events commonly packaged as a book. As you use primary sources, you

begin to understand that the book may only represent one of many historical

interpretations.

 Construct knowledge: Scholarly research should be based on facts and observation,

which requires the use of primary sources.

 To understand the continuum of history: By using primary sources, you come to

understand that we all participate in making history every day, leaving behind primary

source documentation that scholars years later may examine as a record of “the past.

Major ethical principles and practices in research

Ethical principles in research

 Informed consent

 There should be no pressure on individuals to participate

 Respect individual autonomy

 Avoid causing harm

 Maintain anonymity and confidentiality

 Take particular care in research with vulnerable groups

Ethical practices in research

 Honesty and Integrity

 Objectivity

 Carefulness

 Openness

 Respect for Intellectual Property

 Confidentiality

 Responsible Publication

 Legality

 Animal Care

 Human Subjects Protection

Challenges of trying to adhere to ethical principles in research

 Informed consent

 Beneficence- Do not harm

 Respect for anonymity and confidentiality

 Respect for privacy

 Skills of the researcher

Ways thru which challenges of researchers face in the process of literature review can be

solved

– Ensure that your literature searching technique is thorough by, for example, taking

advantage of all the fee-based search services that your university subscribes too (as well

as Google Scholar) and using social media as a source of current awareness

– Conceive literature searching as an on-going process

– Use human agents for identifying relevant new material: your subject librarian, your

supervisor, your peers, authors already identified as relevant

– Annotate your literature review so that you know which sources to recheck for updated

versions

– Wherever possible, seek out and use the original sources

– Be thorough in your treatment. Discuss conflicting views with others, e.g. supervisor,

contacts at conferences, peers online

– Build a line of argument that is yours as relevant to your study (and not author-by-author,

not source format-by-format, not a simple chronological treatment)

– Remember that you are building an argument (not cataloguing a library)

– Provide a strong introduction, sign-posting, and conclusion that tie the contents of the

literature review to the research aims, and emphasise its purpose and value

– Avoid short sections, bullet lists and multiple headings: the structure of your work should

be evident through the line of argument presented

Different methods that researchers can use to ensure validity and reliability of research

instruments

 There are two distinct criteria by which researchers evaluate their measures: reliability and

validity. Reliability is consistency across time (test-retest reliability), across items (internal

consistency), and across researchers (interrater reliability). Validity is the extent to which the

scores actually represent the variable they are intended to.

 Validity is a judgment based on various types of evidence. The relevant evidence includes

the measure’s reliability, whether it covers the construct of interest, and whether the scores it

produces are correlated with other variables they are expected to be correlated with and not

correlated with variables that are conceptually distinct.

 The reliability and validity of a measure is not established by any single study but by the

pattern of results across multiple studies. The assessment of reliability and validity is an

ongoing process.