Good Research Methodology Essay Example

Introduction

A suitable methodology is crucial to effective analysis as provides a guide to the best information, population, data collection as well as analysis methods to apply for the purpose of getting suitable results. In that respect, the following is a summary of the methodology applicable in analyzing the effectiveness and safety of the alternative medicine. It also covers the rationale for the selected techniques, the population as well as a sample.

Rationale for identified target population

The study on the effects and appropriateness of the alternative medicine entails identifying those involved in the production and their consumption. However, this case will focus on consumers as they are in a suitable position to describe the effects of the drugs in comparison with the other drugs and treatments. In that respect, the research population will entail patients who have used the treatments. Those patients will be picked from the list of the institutions administering hose medicines.

Method for determining appropriate sample size

Selecting s suitable sample size is appropriate and crucial o being correct estimation and analysis. In that respect, the sample size has to be representative of the population in terms of characteristics and size. On the other hand, given the population comprise of the alternative medicine users, a sample will be picked to represents all patients in 3 major cities in US. In that respect, ten% percent of the patients in each city will be picked to represent the population . Hence the whole sample comprising of 10% of the total population. In that respect, the sample will be selected through stratified sampling that will involve selecting three cities hence having here scraps from which the samples will be picked through random sampling. The method would ensure that there will be representations not only of the population but also the regions. It will also help identify where there is a significant difference in the medicines effect and safety in different regions. (Patton, 2002)

Rationale for selecting the data collection methodology

Data collection will be done through primary and secondary techniques. Primary data collection will involve the use of questionnaires that will be filled by the selected respondents. The questionnaires will be mailed to the responded, and he filled questionnaires would be mailed back. The need is chosen for is cost and time efficiency as well as being a method he provides for the patient privacy. On the other hand, secondary data collection will entail collecting information on the safety of the drugs from the industry reports on the drug’s safety and effectiveness. In that respect, It will rely on the pharmaceuticals industry reports. The use of both primary and secondary techniques have been chosen as a means of enhancing the information and analysis reliability as the information and results can be compared and hence benefiting from triangulation. In addition, the information collected from the secondary data collection can be confirmed by checking the industry reports. (Patton, 2002)

Descriptive statistics appropriates for the health care problem

Descriptive statistics refers to the analysis of data helping describe or summarize it in a meaningful way identifying patterns that might emerge from the data. Descriptive statistics does not allow making of conclusions beyond the used data analyzed or reaching conclusions regarding hypotheses that might have made. It is a means of describing data. (Stock & Watson, 2003) Descriptive statistics will be important because It will present raw data that would be hard to visualize in respect to what the data shows, especially given a lot of it. Descriptive statistics, thus, enables the presentation of the data in a more meaningful manner, allowing simpler interpretation. For instance, given 1000 patients, we will be interested in overall performance, and safety of the drugs used. There will also be interest in the distribution of he drugs efficiency or safety results. Descriptive statistics will allow doing that. Typically, there will be two types of statistic to be used to describe data: the measure of central tendency and spread. (Montgomery, Vining & Peck, 2001)
Measures of central tendency: will be used for describing the central position of the frequency distribution for the data. In this case, frequency distribution is will be the distribution as well as pattern of the various scores the paints will provide for he drug's effectiveness and safety. They will include the median, mode and mean.
Measures of spread Are the ways of summarizing data by describing its spread out the scores are. They will include the range, the variance as well as standard deviation.
Those measures will be used a the initial stage of data analysis with data being analyzed in terms of count, mean and standard deviation. However, the analysis will hen require quantitative analysis through regression analysis that will require isolation of the descriptive information to quantities that can be analyzed with quantitative techniques. (Patton, 2002)

Statistical tests that could be used to analyze the data

In seeking to Identify the usefulness and appropriateness of the analysis conducted on the use and safety of the alternative medicine, the several test will be applied. The test will include a test of significance that will seek to Identify the significance of the study results. In addition, there will be a test for the individual variables significance. Finally, considering that there will be samples selected from here different regions, there will be a set to identify whether the three populations have significant differences as a guide to the results in generalization. (Stock & Watson, 2003)

Conclusion

In view of the research methodology, It has been identified that the analysis of the use and safety of the alternative medicine will require a population that has a direct experience with the drug’s use. In that view, the identified population is the paints using the medicines in three cities within the US. In respect to the sample selection, stratified and random sampling have been chosen given that the respondents will be selected from three Cities hence a need to divide the population into those three regions and then apply random sampling to pick ten percent of the population in each. In addition, data collection will be done by secondary and primary techniques involving the use of industry reports on the drug’s safety and effectiveness as well as through questionnaires that will be mailed to respondents. Further, It has been identified that descriptive statistics will be applied given the nature of the information to be collected. Finally, establishing the suitability of the analysis and is significant have been identified as been in need of a number of tests. Those tests include a test of variables and the result significance.

References

Montgomery, D., Vining, G. & Peck, E. (2001).Introduction to Linear Regression
Analysis.3rd Ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. 3rd Ed. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stock, J. & Watson, M. (2003).Introduction to Econometrics. Boston: Wesley.