Chapter 1 · Starting a study
What is research, really?
Types of research, the steps of the research process, and what makes research good.
12 TNMGRMU questions answered hereset 13 times, 2014–2025
The problem first
You are a first-year MD resident. Your guide asks you to do some research on dengue patients. You pull last year's case sheets, count how many had platelets below 50,000, and bring the numbers to the next meeting.
Your guide looks at the table and asks whether this is a research study or a record count. At the viva, the examiner asks the same thing in one question.
“What question did you set out to answer, and when did you decide how to answer it?”
Start here
How is research different from clinical experience?
Research is a planned, systematic investigation that answers a stated question and adds to knowledge that others can check and use. Experience is what you notice. Research is what you set out to test, with the method fixed before the results are known.
Features of scientific research:
- A question stated in advance, with objectives.
- A systematic method, chosen to fit the question and written down before data collection.
- Empirical: based on observation or measurement.
- Controlled for chance, bias and confounding as far as possible.
- Reproducible: described well enough for others to repeat.
- Generalisable beyond the people studied.
- Ethical, and reported openly so that others can examine it.
The research process
What are the steps of the research process?
A thesis and a multicentre trial pass through the same steps. The report at the end usually raises the next question.
Interactive
Choose the steps of the research process in order and read why each comes where it does
Try this: choose the step that comes first, then each next step, and read why each one belongs where it does.
No steps chosen yet.
Which step comes first?
Two types of research
Is the study meant to explain something, or to be used?
Basic research seeks new knowledge without a particular use in view. Applied research seeks new knowledge for a specific practical aim. Some research does both.
Interactive
Answer two questions about each project and see where it appears in Pasteur's quadrant
Try this: answer the two questions for project 1, then see in which cell of the grid it appears.
A laboratory study of which gene changes occur in one type of tumour, with no treatment question in view.
Answer both questions to place this project on the grid.
Numbered circles show where you placed each project. Red is the project shown above. Projects 3 and 4 are real studies named in this chapter. The others are teaching examples.
Two types of research
Did the researcher decide who received the exposure?
In observational research you measure what already happens to people. In experimental research you decide who receives the intervention.
Two types of research
Are you counting, or asking why?
Quantitative research measures and counts. Qualitative research collects words and observations to understand experiences and reasons. A mixed-methods study plans both together.
Classification
How are research designs classified?
Two questions sort most quantitative designs: is there a comparison group, and did the researcher assign the intervention?
Experimental research
What makes an experiment a true experiment?
Three features: the researcher manipulates the intervention, there is a control group, and participants are allocated at random. Without random allocation the design is quasi-experimental. Without a control group as well, it is pre-experimental.
Clinical research
What kinds of clinical research are there?
Clinical research studies patients, their samples or their records. The same study can be described in several ways at once.
| Classified by | Types | Teaching example |
|---|---|---|
| Researcher's role | Observational (descriptive, analytical) or interventional (clinical trials) | Cohort of patients on dialysis, or a trial of two antibiotics |
| Purpose | Treatment, prevention, diagnosis, screening, prognosis, quality of life | Accuracy of a rapid test against a reference test (diagnostic) |
| Stage of drug development | Phase I (first use in humans, safety and dose), II (effect and dose in patients), III (large comparative trials), IV (after marketing) | Watching a marketed drug for rare adverse effects (phase IV) |
| Time | Retrospective or prospective, cross-sectional or longitudinal | Last year's case sheets (retrospective) |
| Setting | Hospital, community, laboratory | District survey of hypertension (community) |
| Data | Quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods | Interviews on why patients miss dialysis (qualitative) |
| Other groups | Health services research, outcomes research, translational research | Waiting times in an outpatient department |
Quality
What makes research good?
Good research asks a question that matters, uses a method that can answer it, is done ethically, and is reported in full so that others can use and check it.
Criteria of good research:
- Clear purpose: one stated question, with objectives and, where relevant, a hypothesis.
- Based on what is known: the literature is reviewed, and the question has not already been answered.
- Appropriate design: the design can answer the question, and the sample size is calculated.
- Valid and reliable measurement: tools measure what they claim to, and give the same result when repeated.
- Bias and confounding controlled by design and analysis.
- Ethical: ethics committee approval, informed consent, and trial registration.
- Analysis planned in advance, with all results reported, including negative ones.
- Limitations stated and conclusions limited to what the data show.
- Reproducible: methods described in enough detail to repeat.
- Relevant: the answer can change practice or policy.
Health care
Why does health care need research?
Research shows which treatments work, which cause harm, what causes disease, and how to deliver care to people who cannot reach a hospital.
In Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, Bang and colleagues trained village health workers to give home-based newborn care, including treatment of sepsis, in 39 villages, with 47 villages as controls. Baseline neonatal mortality in the intervention area was 62 per 1000 live births. In the third year of the intervention it was 25.5 per 1000, a net reduction of 62.2% compared with the control area (Lancet, 1999).
Research is also what clinicians use at the bedside. Sackett and colleagues defined evidence based medicine as “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients” (BMJ, 1996).
Decide
What type of study is my project?
Answer a few questions about what you plan to do.
What is the aim of your project?
Type of study: all possible answers
- Clinical audit: Audit measures practice against a standard set in advance. It is not research, although the audit may raise a research question.
- Qualitative research: In-depth interviews, focus groups or observation, analysed into themes. Answers "why" and "how" questions.
- Mixed-methods study: A quantitative part (how many, how much) and a qualitative part (why) planned together.
- Randomised controlled trial (true experiment): Manipulation, a control group and random allocation. Register with CTRI before the first participant is enrolled.
- Non-randomised trial (quasi-experimental): You assigned the intervention but not by chance, so the groups may differ at the start.
- Descriptive study: Case report, case series or a cross-sectional survey. It describes and generates hypotheses but cannot test them.
- Case-control study: Start from the outcome and look back for exposure. Suited to rare diseases.
- Cohort study: Start from the exposure and follow people forward to see who develops the outcome.
- Analytical cross-sectional study: Exposure and outcome measured at one point in time. It shows association, not which came first.
Comparison
Pairs of terms residents confuse
Basic or applied research
| Feature | Basic research | Applied research |
|---|---|---|
| Aim | Understand how something works | Solve a specific practical problem |
| Use in view | None in particular | A specific practical aim |
| Usual setting | Laboratory, animal and cell studies | Clinics, community, health services |
| Example | How a bacterium becomes resistant to an antibiotic | Whether a new dosing schedule reduces treatment failure |
| Result | Mechanisms, theories | Treatments, methods, policies |
Observational or experimental research
| Feature | Observational | Experimental |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides the exposure | The patient, their doctor or circumstances | The researcher |
| Groups formed by | Exposure or outcome | Allocation, ideally random |
| Confounding handled by | Matching, restriction, statistical adjustment | Random allocation |
| Designs | Cross-sectional, case-control, cohort | Randomised and non-randomised trials |
| Use when | The exposure is harmful or cannot be assigned | The intervention can ethically be given or withheld |
| Early example | Doll and Hill, smoking and lung carcinoma (1950) | MRC streptomycin trial (1948) |
Research or clinical audit
| Feature | Research | Clinical audit |
|---|---|---|
| Question | What is the best practice? | Are we doing what we should? |
| Aim | New knowledge that can be generalised | Check local practice against a standard |
| Standard | Not known in advance | Set before the audit starts |
| Intervention | May test a new one and may randomise | Only existing care, with no allocation |
| Ends with | A thesis or paper | A change in practice, then a repeat audit |
Quantitative or qualitative research
| Feature | Quantitative | Qualitative |
|---|---|---|
| Data | Numbers | Words and observations |
| Question | How many? How much? Is there a difference? | Why? How? What is it like? |
| Sampling | Probability sampling where possible, with a calculated sample size | Purposive, until interviews stop adding new themes |
| Analysis | Statistics | Coding into themes |
| Result | Estimates with confidence intervals, P values | Themes and explanations |
Interactive
Decide whether each project is research, clinical audit or service evaluation
Try this: read project 1, choose one answer, and compare the explanation with the definitions below.
- Research aims to produce new knowledge that can be generalised or transferred to other settings. It may allocate participants to interventions, including at random.
- Clinical audit asks "Does this service reach a predetermined standard?" and measures practice against that standard.
- Service evaluation asks "What standard does this service achieve?" and measures the current service without reference to a standard.
Choose one answer to see the explanation.
Teaching examples. Definitions from the UK Health Research Authority table "Defining research" (2017).
By specialty
Types of research by specialty
You notice that three patients started on a new oral antidiabetic drug had low serum sodium.
Three cases make a case series. It raises a hypothesis. Testing it needs a comparison group.
You check whether antibiotic prophylaxis in your unit is given within the time your hospital protocol sets.
This is an audit against a standard. Comparing two prophylaxis regimens would be research.
A laboratory project studies which gene changes occur in one tumour type, with no treatment question in view.
This is basic research. Applied studies can later use what it finds.
A new analgesic is given to people for the first time, in a small group of healthy volunteers.
Phase I asks about safety and dose first. Efficacy is tested in later phases.
Trained village health workers provide home-based newborn care in some villages, and other villages act as controls.
This is community intervention research. Bang and colleagues used this approach in Gadchiroli (Lancet, 1999).
Why do patients with schizophrenia stop their medicines after discharge?
A "why" question needs qualitative interviews, not only a count of patients who stopped.
Past records are used to compare preterm babies whose mothers received antenatal steroids with babies whose mothers did not.
This is a retrospective observational study. You did not assign the steroids, so look for confounding.
Women needing induction of labour are allocated at random to one of two induction methods.
This is a true experiment: manipulation, a control group and random allocation. Register it with CTRI before enrolment.
Common myths
Common mistaken beliefs
Myth: Research means laboratory work.
Most clinical research is done in wards, outpatient departments and villages. A well-planned survey or record review is research.
Myth: Collecting data is the first step.
Data collection is step 6. The question, design and protocol come first and cannot be repaired afterwards.
Myth: If my patients improved after the treatment, the treatment works.
Without a comparison group you cannot separate the effect of treatment from natural recovery or other care.
Myth: An audit and a research study are the same thing.
Audit checks practice against a known standard. Research produces new knowledge that can be generalised.
Myth: Qualitative research is not scientific because it has no numbers.
It uses systematic methods to answer "why" and "how" questions that numbers cannot answer.
Myth: A study with a negative result has failed.
A well-designed negative study is useful evidence. Leaving it unpublished is one of the four stages of research waste.
Why this matters to you
Five consequences of not knowing what research is
Protocol sent back
A topic with no stated question, objectives or design is returned by the research committee.
Data that answer nothing
Case sheets collected before the question was fixed often lack the variables the question needs.
Questions you cannot answer at the viva
You cannot say whether your study is descriptive or analytical, observational or experimental.
Misreading papers
You treat a case series as proof that a treatment works.
Harm to patients
A poorly designed study exposes patients to risk and uses their time without producing usable evidence.
History
History of clinical research methods
- 1747
James Lind
On the Salisbury, gave six remedies to six pairs of sailors with scurvy. One of the pair given two oranges and one lemon a day was fit for duty after six days. Published in A Treatise of the Scurvy (1753).
- 1948
Medical Research Council, UK
Streptomycin trial in pulmonary tuberculosis: patients allocated by a random process to streptomycin plus bed rest or bed rest alone, with steps taken to prevent foreknowledge of the allocation.
- 1950
Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill
Reported the association between smoking and carcinoma of the lung in the BMJ, from a case-control study.
- 1964
World Medical Association
Adopted the Declaration of Helsinki at its General Assembly in Helsinki. The latest revision was adopted in October 2024.
- 1979
The Belmont Report, USA
Published on 18 April 1979. It named three basic ethical principles for research with human subjects: respect for persons, beneficence and justice.
- 1992
Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group
Published "Evidence-based medicine. A new approach to teaching the practice of medicine" in JAMA.
- 1997
Donald Stokes
Published Pasteur's Quadrant, arguing that research can seek understanding and practical use at the same time.
- 1999
Abhay Bang and colleagues, Gadchiroli
Home-based newborn care by village health workers reduced neonatal mortality by 62.2% compared with control villages.
- 2009
Iain Chalmers and Paul Glasziou
Estimated that about 85% of research investment is wasted across four stages: question, design, publication and reporting.
- 2009
Drugs Controller General of India
Made registration of clinical trials in the Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI) mandatory from 15 June 2009.
- 2017
Indian Council of Medical Research
Published the National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research Involving Human Participants.
Guidelines
Definitions of research in guidelines
Research and experimental development “comprise creative and systematic work undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge – including knowledge of humankind, culture and society – and to devise new applications of available knowledge.”
To count as research and development, an activity must be “novel, creative, uncertain, systematic, transferable and/or reproducible.”
Basic research: “experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundations of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view.” Applied research: “original investigation undertaken in order to acquire new knowledge. It is, however, directed primarily towards a specific, practical aim or objective.”
Medical research involving human participants “must have a scientifically sound and rigorous design and execution that are likely to produce reliable, valid, and valuable knowledge and avoid research waste.” It “must be registered in a publicly accessible database before recruitment of the first participant.”
Twelve general principles: essentiality, voluntariness, non-exploitation, social responsibility, privacy and confidentiality, risk minimization, professional competence, maximization of benefit, institutional arrangements, transparency and accountability, totality of responsibility, and environmental protection.
Since 15 June 2009, registration of clinical trials in the CTRI has been mandatory, as decided by the Drugs Controller General (India).
Steps
The research process, step by step
- Identify a problem: a gap you noticed in practice or in the literature.
- Review the literature to find out what is already known (literature search).
- Write the research question, hypothesis and objectives (research question).
- Choose the design, the sampling method, the sample size and the data collection tools.
- Write the protocol, obtain ethics committee approval, and register trials with CTRI.
- Pilot the tools, then collect and check the data.
- Analyse as planned (descriptive statistics, choosing a test) and interpret the results with their limitations.
- Write the thesis or paper and publish it (writing, publishing), including negative results.
Reading a paper
Five checks on what kind of research a paper is
- What question did the authors set out to answer, and was it stated before the results?
- Is the study observational or experimental, and does that design fit the question?
- Is there a comparison group, and how was it formed?
- Was it approved by an ethics committee and, for a trial, registered before enrolment?
- Do the conclusions stay within what this design and these data can show?
Why is it called that?
Word surgery
“Research”
Looking something up, such as reading reviews before buying a phone.
A planned, systematic investigation that answers a stated question and produces knowledge others can check and use.
“Experiment”
Trying something to see what happens.
A study in which the researcher assigns the intervention and compares it with a control group, ideally with random allocation.
Did you assign the exposure? Yes: experimental. No: observational. Is there a comparison group? No: descriptive. Yes: analytical.
Research
Old French recercher: "seek out, search closely"
A close, systematic search for new knowledge.
Method
Greek methodos: "scientific inquiry", from meta ("in pursuit of") + hodos ("a way")
The planned way a study answers its question.
Experiment
Latin experimentum: "a trial, test, proof", from experiri ("to try, test")
A test in which the researcher applies the intervention.
Empirical
Greek empeiria: "experience"
Based on observation or measurement, not on theory alone.
Data
Latin datum: "(thing) given"
Plural of datum. The facts obtained by measurement and observation.
Audit
Latin auditus: "a hearing, a listening"
Examination of accounts was originally done orally. A clinical audit examines practice against a standard.
Exam answers
Model answer outlines
Define research. Types of research with examples, including applied research
Ph.D. RM 2017, 2020, 2023Definition: research is a planned, systematic investigation that answers a stated question and adds to knowledge that can be checked and generalised. The OECD Frascati Manual (2015) defines research and experimental development as creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge and to devise new applications of available knowledge.
| Basis | Types | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Basic (pure, fundamental), applied, experimental development | Mechanism of drug resistance, trial of a new regimen, a new diagnostic kit |
| Researcher's role | Observational or experimental (interventional) | Case-control study of smoking, randomised trial |
| Objective | Descriptive or analytical | Prevalence survey, cohort study testing a risk factor |
| Data | Quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods | Blood pressure survey, interviews on treatment default |
| Time | Cross-sectional or longitudinal, retrospective or prospective | One-day survey, birth cohort followed for years |
| Setting | Laboratory, clinical, community (field), health systems | Cell culture, ward-based trial, village survey, OPD waiting times |
Applied research: “original investigation undertaken in order to acquire new knowledge ... directed primarily towards a specific, practical aim or objective” (Frascati Manual 2015). Features: it starts from a practical problem, its results are used directly in practice or policy, and it is usually done in clinics, the community or health services. Examples: whether home-based newborn care by village health workers reduces neonatal mortality (Bang et al, Lancet 1999), and a comparison of two dressings for wound infection. Basic research, by contrast, has no particular use in view. The two overlap in use-inspired basic research (Stokes, 1997).
Different types of clinical research
Ph.D. RM 2019- Definition: research with patients, their biological samples or their records, to understand disease or improve its prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
- By researcher's role: observational, either descriptive (case report, case series, cross-sectional survey) or analytical (case-control, cohort, analytical cross-sectional), and interventional (randomised and non-randomised trials).
- By purpose: therapeutic, preventive, diagnostic, screening, prognostic, quality of life.
- By phase (drug trials): phase I is first use in humans, for safety and dose. Phase II tests effect and dose in patients. Phase III is large comparative trials. Phase IV is post-marketing surveillance.
- By time: retrospective or prospective, cross-sectional or longitudinal.
- By data: quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods.
- Other groups: health services research, outcomes research, translational research (laboratory findings taken to patients).
- All need ethics committee approval. Trials also need CTRI registration before enrolment (mandatory since 15 June 2009).
Classification of research designs, and characteristics of true experimental designs, with examples
Ph.D. RM 2014, 2023Define research as in the first answer. Then draw the classification tree:
- Descriptive (no comparison group): case report, case series, cross-sectional survey. Describes and generates hypotheses.
- Analytical, observational (comparison group, exposure not assigned): analytical cross-sectional, case-control, cohort. Example: Doll and Hill (1950), smoking and lung carcinoma.
- Analytical, experimental (researcher assigns intervention): randomised controlled trial, non-randomised trial. Example: MRC streptomycin trial (1948).
- Qualitative designs alongside: phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography.
Characteristics of a true experiment: manipulation (the researcher applies the intervention), control (a comparison group without it), randomisation (allocation by chance).
| Category | Design | Notation |
|---|---|---|
| True experimental | Pretest-posttest control group | R O X O / R O – O |
| True experimental | Posttest-only control group | R X O / R – O |
| True experimental | Solomon four-group | both of the above together |
| True experimental | Factorial, crossover | two interventions tested together, or each patient receives both in sequence |
| Quasi-experimental | Non-equivalent control group, time series | O X O / O – O (no R) |
| Pre-experimental | One-shot case study, one-group pretest-posttest | X O, or O X O |
R = random allocation, O = observation or measurement, X = intervention. Merits of true experiments: strongest evidence of cause and effect. Limits: cost, ethics, and results that may not apply outside the trial setting.
Steps of the research process, with examples
Ph.D. RM 2014, 2015, 2016Running teaching example: anaemia in pregnant women attending your antenatal clinic.
- Identify the problem: many women remain anaemic at term despite iron tablets.
- Review the literature: what is known about adherence and dosing schedules.
- Formulate the question, hypothesis and objectives: does a twice-weekly schedule give a haemoglobin rise similar to daily dosing?
- Choose the design: a randomised controlled trial. Define the population, sampling, sample size, outcome and tools.
- Write the protocol: ethics committee approval, informed consent, CTRI registration.
- Pilot and collect data: test the forms, train staff, enrol and follow up.
- Analyse and interpret: the planned statistical test, confidence intervals, limitations.
- Report and publish: thesis and journal article, including negative results. New questions start the cycle again.
Criteria of good research
Ph.D. RM 2025- Purpose clearly defined, with the research question, objectives and hypothesis stated.
- Based on a review of existing knowledge, and not a repeat of a question already answered.
- Design appropriate to the question, with a calculated sample size.
- Methods described in enough detail to be repeated (reproducible).
- Valid and reliable measurement tools.
- Bias and confounding controlled.
- High ethical standards: ethics approval, informed consent, confidentiality, registration.
- Analysis planned in advance and adequate for the data.
- Limitations stated frankly, and conclusions confined to what the data justify.
- Results published in full, including negative results.
- Relevant to practice or policy.
Frascati Manual 2015 criteria for any research activity: novel, creative, uncertain, systematic, transferable and/or reproducible. Declaration of Helsinki (2024): the design must be “scientifically sound and rigorous”, and the research must “avoid research waste”. Chalmers and Glasziou (2009): research is wasted at four stages (question, design, publication, report).
What is scientific research? Ethics involved
Ph.D. RM 2017Scientific research: a systematic, empirical investigation of a stated question, using methods fixed in advance, whose results are reproducible, open to scrutiny and generalisable.
Ethics:
- Belmont Report (1979): respect for persons, beneficence, justice.
- Declaration of Helsinki (WMA, 1964, latest revision 2024): research ethics committee approval before the research begins, free and informed consent, and registration before the first participant is recruited.
- ICMR National Ethical Guidelines 2017: twelve general principles, including essentiality, voluntariness, non-exploitation, privacy and confidentiality, risk minimization, and transparency and accountability.
- In practice: ethics committee approval, written informed consent, confidentiality, care for vulnerable groups, compensation for research-related injury, disclosure of conflicts of interest, CTRI registration for trials.
- Research misconduct (US Office of Research Integrity): fabrication, falsification or plagiarism. Honest error is not misconduct.
Details: research ethics chapter.
Significance of research in health care, and research methodology in health
Ph.D. RM 2014 · MD Community Medicine undated- Finds causes and risk factors: Doll and Hill (1950) linked smoking with lung carcinoma.
- Tests treatments: the MRC streptomycin trial (1948) used random allocation.
- Improves delivery of care: home-based newborn care in Gadchiroli reduced neonatal mortality by 62.2% compared with control villages (Bang et al, 1999).
- Supports evidence based medicine: integrating the best research evidence with clinical expertise (Sackett et al, 1996).
- Monitors safety of drugs and devices after they are marketed (phase IV).
- Guides policy and programmes through surveys and operational research.
- Reduces waste of money and of the time participants give, when studies are well designed and fully reported.
Research methodology in health is the set of methods for planning, conducting and reporting health research: the steps of the research process, study designs, sampling, sample size, data collection, analysis, ethics and reporting. Outline the steps as in the answer above and link each to its method.
The one thing to remember
Research starts with a stated question and a method chosen before the data are collected.
Examples labelled as teaching examples use made-up numbers.
Sources: Lind J. A Treatise of the Scurvy. Edinburgh; 1753. Hughes RE. James Lind and the cure of scurvy: an experimental approach. Med Hist 1975;19:342–51 (doi:10.1017/s0025727300020469). Medical Research Council. Streptomycin treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. Br Med J 1948;2:769–82 (PMID 18890300). Johnson T. J R Soc Med 2019;112:438–41 (doi:10.1177/0141076819878968). Doll R, Hill AB. Smoking and carcinoma of the lung. Br Med J 1950;2:739–48 (doi:10.1136/bmj.2.4682.739). Paneth N, Susser E, Susser M. Soz Praventivmed 2002;47:359–65 (doi:10.1007/s000380200003). World Medical Association. Declaration of Helsinki. JAMA 2025;333:71–4 (doi:10.1001/jama.2024.21972). National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. The Belmont Report. 18 April 1979. Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group. JAMA 1992;268:2420–5 (doi:10.1001/jama.1992.03490170092032). Sackett DL et al. BMJ 1996;312:71–2 (doi:10.1136/bmj.312.7023.71). Stokes DE. Pasteur's Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press; 1997. Bang AT et al. Lancet 1999;354:1955–61 (doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(99)03046-9). Chalmers I, Glasziou P. Lancet 2009;374:86–9 (doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60329-9). OECD. Frascati Manual 2015. Paris: OECD Publishing; 2015. Indian Council of Medical Research. National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research Involving Human Participants. New Delhi: ICMR; 2017. ISBN 978-81-910091-94. Clinical Trials Registry-India, ctri.nic.in. US Office of Research Integrity. Definition of research misconduct, ori.hhs.gov. Health Research Authority (UK). Defining research table. October 2017, hra-decisiontools.org.uk.
Past papers
Every TNMGRMU question on what research is
Each one is answered in this chapter. Tap a sitting to open the university's own question paper.
- ×2Steps in research process
- ×1Criteria of a good research
- ×1Applied Research
- ×1Define research. Explain the classification of Research design and its concepts with examples
- ×1Explain in brief about Types of Research with examples
- ×1Describe the different types of clinical research?
- ×1Types of Research
- ×1What is scientific research and write in brief about ethics involved?
- ×1Define Research, list the characteristics of true experimental designs and explain the various experimental designs with examples
- ×1Significance of Research in Health care
- ×1Explain the steps of research process with examples
- ×1Research Methodology in health