← Back to series HSCI 207

Research Methods in Health Sciences

Office Hours, the companion podcast for HSCI 207

Each episode is a conversation between Sarah and Kiffer about one lesson of the course. Every episode page has the audio with a visual companion and captions, a short summary, a list of chapters and a downloadable transcript.

Starting a study

Lessons 01–03

The Research ProcessThe lesson follows the research cycle from topic to problem to question, classifies questions as descriptive, explanatory, predictive or exploratory, and matches each kind of question to a quantitative, qualitative or mixed-methods approach.

Developing a Research QuestionThe lesson structures questions with PECO, PICO and SPIDER, scores candidate questions against the FINER criteria, and turns the chosen question into an aim, objectives and hypotheses supported by a few key papers.

Causal Webs and Directed Acyclic GraphsThe lesson moves from a literature summary to a causal web and a first DAG drawn in DAGitty, names the roles of exposure, outcome, confounder, mediator and collider by example, and converts the DAG into a variable list.

People & ethics

Lessons 04–05

Interest Holder Mapping and EngagementThe lesson shows how to identify the interest holders in a study, map them with a power-interest grid and an influence map, choose levels of engagement on the IAP2 spectrum, and write an engagement plan that follows TCPS 2 Chapter 9 and OCAP®.

Research Ethics in Practice: TCPS 2The lesson applies the three core principles of TCPS 2 to research design and explains risk and REB review, free and informed consent, privacy and the secondary use of data, and the requirements of Chapter 9.

Design, sampling & measurement

Lessons 06–07

Choosing an Approach and Managing a Research ProjectThe lesson uses a decision map to choose a design family, compares the three core mixed-methods designs, sets out the sections of a research protocol, and shows how to plan a project with a timeline, roles, a budget and a data management plan.

Sampling, Recruitment and MeasurementThe lesson distinguishes target, source and study populations, probability and non-probability samples, and random sampling and random allocation, and then turns concepts into operational definitions and validated instruments.

Collecting data

Lessons 08–10

Collecting Quantitative Data: Surveys, Administrative Data and Chart ReviewsThe lesson shows how to build, pilot and run a survey with fraud screening and secure export, how to judge what administrative health records can measure, and how to design a chart abstraction form with an agreement check.

Data Sources and Data LinkageThe lesson describes the Canadian research data environment, including Statistics Canada, CIHI and Population Data BC, and explains data access requests, deterministic and probabilistic record linkage, linkage error and the Five Safes framework.

Collecting Qualitative Data: Interviews and Focus GroupsThe lesson compares interviews and focus groups and shows how to write and pilot a semi-structured guide, conduct and moderate sessions with field notes and reflexive memos, and choose a transcription convention.

Analysis & write-up

Lessons 11–12

First Steps in AnalysisThe lesson produces a descriptive Table 1 from the Canadian Social Connection Survey, then builds a starter codebook, codes an interview transcript and matches the main qualitative analytic approaches to the data they suit.

Writing Up ResearchThe lesson shows how to write the background, methods, results and discussion sections of a report, check a draft against STROBE, COREQ or SRQR, design results tables, and manage APA 7 references with Zotero.