Education and Research
Education and research questions test teaching methods, domains of learning, research design and interpretation, sampling and ethics. PGIMER mixes recall of Bloom's taxonomy with applied appraisal of a described study.
Teaching and learning
- Bloom's revised cognitive domain: remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, creating. Affective domain: receiving, responding, valuing, organising, characterising. Psychomotor (Simpson): imitation, manipulation, precision, articulation, naturalisation.
- Lesson plan: specific objectives, previous knowledge, introduction, presentation, summary, evaluation, assignment.
- Best method for a psychomotor skill is demonstration with return demonstration; for attitudes, role play; for large groups, lecture with audiovisual aids.
Research essentials
- Designs: experimental (randomisation, control, manipulation), quasi-experimental (no randomisation), descriptive, correlational, case-control, cohort.
- Validity is accuracy, whether the tool measures what it should. Reliability is consistency: test-retest, split-half, inter-rater.
- Levels of evidence: systematic review and meta-analysis, randomised controlled trial, cohort, case-control, case series, expert opinion.
- p below 0.05 means the result is unlikely under the null hypothesis; it does not measure effect size or importance.
Worked example
A study assigns 100 postoperative patients by computer-generated random numbers to early ambulation or usual care and compares wound dehiscence rates. This is a randomised controlled trial because it has randomisation, a control group and an intervention. If allocation had been by ward, it would be quasi-experimental. Reasoning: identify manipulation first, then randomisation.
Ethics
Institutional ethics committee approval, informed consent, voluntary participation, confidentiality, right to withdraw, protection of vulnerable groups, no plagiarism or fabrication.
Traps
Using reliability and validity interchangeably, calling a cross-sectional survey experimental, and treating statistical significance as clinical significance.