Fall 3-week 2007

Syllabus (subject to change)

Professor Lynn Underwood

Office: Gerstecker 213

underwoodlg@hiram.edu

lynnunderwood@researchintegration.org

Textbook:

Gehlbach, Stephen H. Interpreting the Medical Literature, McGraw-Hill, Amherst, Mass 2006.

There will be a Sakai site on home.hiram.edu associated with this course, and you must be able to access it.  Articles will be put up on the site for you to read online or download.  It will be enable interaction for project selection.

Classroom location: TBA

Class times and schedule:

Class meets from 9:30 to 12:30 Mon Tues Thurs Friday

Course Summary: Studying people using scientific tools can actually help us and those around us to change behavior wisely and adjust our attitudes to better agree with the way the world operates.  This course will introduce some of the key principles in the design of human studies primarily through reading and analyzing studies others have done.  It is a challenge to study people. People are unfortunately - or fortunately - “messy”! By reading and interpreting studies of humans, we can make better decisions for ourselves and those we care about. To do that well, we need to know the limitations of the conclusions we can reach given the data presented. This course also addresses the ethical reasons to do research, and ethical concerns both in doing research and interpreting it. There will also be an opportunity to practice designing human research.

Goals: 

This is an introductory course – we will work towards the following goals:

• Be able to read a scientific paper on a human study, especially a medical study, and
• identify key issues in study design
• identify some fatal flaws
• identify some of what you can and cannot conclude from the study
• Through the reading of papers on human studies be able to identify some of the key factors involved in clinical and human research so that you can:
• Begin to apply the results – personally and professionally
• Design human research yourself or with others.
• Identify some of the key ethical issues in doing human studies and presented when reading about the research of others
• Apply the results of some specific research studies studied in class to your own life in practical ways.

Class attendance and participation is crucial

Missing even a single class is a real problem in this course.  You are getting 3 hours credit for this course, so missing one class is like missing a week of class in the normal semester.  Assignment materials will be handed out, and presentations and discussions cannot be made up easily. If you do miss a class it is your responsibility to obtain notes from someone in the class.  The text is not a substitute for class participation. 

Assignments:

• Assigned reading. Keep notes on assigned reading. Keeping up with assigned reading is very important and it may also be evaluated by pop quiz or individualized class discussion assessment.
• Specific project assignments. Make sure these are completed in accordance with the instructions, and submitted on time.  Late assignments will not get full credit, and are a real problem as class discussion of assignment material happens the day it is due.
• You are expected to spend substantive time outside class reading assigned materials and working on projects.  The more you put into this course, the more you will get out of it.

Project Assignments:

The following are preliminary descriptions of these assignments.  These will be presented in more detail, and possibly refined, as the class develops.

1) Project one  Select one of the identified scientific studies ( on Sakai)

1. Summary – What was the central study question?  Explain for the non-expert
2. Terms for Project one:  Use these terms to examine the study

   Confounding

                   Types of study: More important to describe the architecture of it than to name: Cross sectional, Intervention – (Experimental),Retrospective (Case control – or comparative sample),Variations, Prospective (followup or longitudinal)

                   Definitions

                   Measurement

                   Classifications

                   Outcomes

                   Selection issues – Bias? Sample? Random?

3. What are the implications for action of this study?  What limits keep it from being helpful for action? Discuss strengths and limitations.

2) Second project: Design a study

Think of a question you would like to answer about humans – be specific and clear

Design a study to answer that question.

What kind of study will work best: intervention, cross-sectional, retrospective, prospective, combo

What measures will you use… for each of the variables

                                    How reliable are your measures?

                                    Is there any way to make them more reliable?

                                    How do they connect to the construct of interest- so they enable your study to be useful

How will you “control” the study so that you investigate your question, and not something else?

How will you select your sample?

Address ethical issues.

Think about the various issues we have discussed to date in study design and incorporate them into your study plan. 

This assignment will be critiqued by your peers in class. 

You will also hand in a hard copy.

3) Final project:

I would suggest that you pick this published study early on in the class, and be collecting your info all along on it.

Take a question that you are interested in answering about human beings that might have practical application to your life or those you care about.  Pick something specific. 

Pick one original study on the topic in a peer-reviewed medical or social science journal. 

This project is a critique of the study such as in project 1 but you will be able to go into depth far more.

Describe the study: Type, selection, measurements, likelihood of having false positive or false negative results…see Gehlbach readings and class notes for prompts for various additional points.

Address ethical issues.

Use what you learned from feedback from project one to improve this project write-up.  This project should be in more depth, as you will now know more.Given the results, what would you advise regarding action and why?  Look at various problems in the study that limits what you can conclude?

Class presentation and hard copy to hand in.

Topic order and schedule (some changes may be made)

Identifying your work and the work of others:

Part of being a scholar can include taking the ideas of others and working with them.  When you use someone else’s ideas, you must acknowledge the source.  This is particularly important if you quote directly from them, but also if you take specific concepts and general ideas from others.  In scholarship it is considered a good thing to refer to others’ ideas and build on them, but it is essential that you give them credit, just as you would want them to do for you.

Contact information/ Other Practical Details:

I am most rapidly available via email:

lynnunderwood@researchintegration.org

or underwoodlg@hiram.edu

My office telephone number is 330- 5696009 (extension 6009).

I need you to have an active email address for you as I use email to communicate between classes.  Check email from me regularly. 

Assignment Submissions:

Double spaced, 12pt type for all assignments.

For Bibliographies use APA formatting: this site provides some help on this

http://word-crafter.net/APA/

Class assignment will be sometimes be submitted electronically via e-mail.  As with traditional assignments, electronic submissions are expected to be on time.  Microsoft Word format is preferred. In the title of the attachment document put last name and assignment number.

Grading:

Weighting of assignments:

(tentative – changes may be made)

There will be no final exam in this course

Class attendance and discussion participation are key to success in this class. If more than one class is missed or if participation in class discussion and critiques is sub-par, grade will be lowered by 0.33. If this continues to be a pattern over the entire 3 weeks, grade will be lowered by one full point.

30% Project 1

30% Project 2

40% Project 3

Grades – each project: 

4.00 A

3.67 A-

3.33 B+

3.00 B

2.67 B-

2.33 C+

2.00 C

1.67 C-

1.33 D+

1.00 D