Group-Analytic Contexts, Issue 80, June 2018
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CONTEXTS’ COLUMNISTS<br />
Quantitative Unease<br />
By Susanne Vosmer<br />
Newsletter – Summer <strong>2018</strong> 83<br />
A column dedicated to demystifying psychotherapy research –<br />
love it, hate it, or both…at least try to know what it’s all about!<br />
Designing Your Research Study<br />
Making lists isn’t everybody’s cup of tea but quite useful when it<br />
comes to research. Let’s assume that you’ll have nothing better to do<br />
on a rainy Sunday morning than thinking about the design of a study.<br />
You’ll grab a piece of paper and a pen - or your gadget if you prefer<br />
to type. Then you’ll jot down all the research ‘issues’ (‘problems’) that<br />
interest you.<br />
Next, you’ll look at your list and … no, you won’t sigh!<br />
You’ll glance at your favourite toy, which will come in handy now.<br />
You can use your tablet, smart phone iPad or your laptop to conduct a<br />
‘review of the literature’. Sounds grand? No, it isn’t. It simply means<br />
that you’ll find out what others have written about your issues of<br />
interest. And by ‘issues’ I don’t mean whether you still resent your<br />
parents’ lack of originality.<br />
If your internet is working and you have access to databases,<br />
fantastic. Then you can search journals, periodicals and registered<br />
trials by typing in relevant search terms. This enables you to identify<br />
papers that have been published on your topic of interest. If you don’t<br />
have access to journals or databases, use ‘Google Scholar’ or go into<br />
a library. Or even better, use them all. That isn’t greed, it’s necessity.<br />
When reviewing the literature, you’ve several options. If<br />
you’ve identified a gap (or void) in your area of interest (your<br />
‘research problems’), you generate a list of ‘research questions’<br />
(potentially suitable questions that you’d like to research). Or, if<br />
you’ve seen that someone else has already researched your ‘favourite<br />
issues’ - forget work, lovers, parents… we are talking research now -<br />
but not in their totality, you can extend a previously conducted study<br />
and include particular aspects of interest to you. Again, make a list and<br />
write down what these are. Or, if you’ve detected flaws in the studies<br />
you’ve come across and think that you’re smarter, because you’re a<br />
group analyst and can iron out their flaws, jot them down.
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