An Overview of the Methodology and Reporting Standards for Umbrella Reviews

What are Umbrella Reviews? Definition Essentially, Umbrella reviews are a cluster of existing systematic reviews on a shared topic. They are called by many names, overview of reviews being the most common one. Umbrella reviews are overarching in nature as they aggregate the findings from different reviews and address the specific questions. Each of the umbrella reviews focuses on a broad condition or problem in which there are more than two or at least two potential interventions and brings out the reviews that address these potential interventions and their results. The past few decades have seen a phenomenal rise in publications by researchers. This has increased the need for evidence synthesis so that the knowledge about specific topics can be collated and summarized. This practice helps in creating substantive evidence for policy makers, clinicians, researchers, educators which is useful across a variety of issues. A lot of literature review techniques are available and all of them have their own methods. Some of the common literature review techniques that are used by researchers are, systematic review, scoping review, Integrative, Narrative, and the qualitative methodologies are the most common to see. Reviews are being used extensively as a secondary data source for they help in summarizing huge volumes of published evidence in some of the fields of research. There is plethora of primary and secondary sources that are available. This has made the task of researchers and readers difficult, where they must spend a vast amount of time sourcing, collating, and analyzing the compiled summaries into meaningful conclusions. The umbrella methodology comes to rescue here. It overcomes the problem by synthesizing findings from so many sources to report on a single source of research. Background of Umbrella Reviews There is an increase in the number of publications using the umbrella technique. As the name is suggestive, umbrella technique brings the literature...

What is a Case Study and Why should I Use It in My PhD Dissertation? Understanding the purpose of case studies in research.

A case study can provide appropriate research design in a qualitative or quantitative study to to gain concrete, contextual, in-depth knowledge and multi-faceted understanding of a complex issue in its real-life context. The case study can be a great tool for providing insight and developing theories in the avenue of present research. What is a case study? A case study is a structured, focused, in-depth look at a particular issue or topic that reports on the findings and conclusions of researchers who have studied the case. A case study is not intended to be an exploratory analysis or to make sweeping generalizations. Rather, it is an objective, focused, and structured approach to understand the specific circumstances of an issue or the people, places, and things that make up a society. Prepared to the best of the researchers knowledge, a case study is a unique research method. In fact, case studies are the most common type of qualitative research. A case study is often a combination of interviews, focus groups, documentation, and research documentation. Why do researchers use case study? Case studies often contain detailed, in-depth examination of a particular issue or topic that reports on the findings and conclusions of researchers who have studied the case. Case studies are excellent for gaining insight and understanding in the following ways: –  Focus on one aspect of the phenomena being studied Give the researcher a window into the participants’ world  Explain the decision making process involved in data collection, analysis, and presentation  Allow for in-depth examination of the methodology How to do a case study in PhD research To conduct a case study, the students must first adhere to the university requirements and establish a strong subject knowledge in the domain of study. This is to help the researcher design the case study in a controlled environment. The case study must:...

Some studies are painstakingly planned in advance; others are tailored as enquiry processes.

In presipified study questions of interest arguments supporting the inquiry,the specific procedures of the inquiry are worked out at the beginning of the investigation .Once the design is established ,the researcher implements the study,adhering to original plan as closely as possible. Much of the traditional empirical research in the social sciences is of this kind. Emergent studies have a long tradition in the humanities and in some branches of social sciences.In emergent studies ,the questions of interest ,supporting arguments ,and procedural details are worked out as the study proceeds .Such studies are most frequently employed to investigate natural variation ,to study phenomena afresh/or in all their normal complexity,or to explore the phenomena to see what can be learned.Emergent designs may also be used because researchers lack prior knowledge of phenomenon ,methodological tools are inappropriate or lacking,or situational control in inadequate to conduct a presipified study. Studies need not be one or the other but may blend the two strategies ,intentionally or inadvertently .A presified study may become more emergent as feels control breakdown ,new information suggests that initial assumptions were incorrect ,or unstable conditions demand greater researcher flexibility.When the pretest Measures show that the control group was already scoring higher than the treatment group instead of both the group starting out equally. The study intentionally starts as a divergent term which specifications are most meaningful for important and feasible. The nature of phenomenon being examined also influences whether a more presipified or a more this strategy is the best choice .Suppose you were interested knowing more about how different personalities type respond to chronic stress.You might chose as your dissertation to conduct a meta-analysis(combining results of comparable studies into a single index) of the considerable empirical literature that relates elevated blood pressure to prespecified design that summarized the extent of the available literature ,specified the criteria for selecting studies...

Summarizing and interpreting the information in case study research – PhD Help Series

In case study research,making sense of information collected from multiple sources is a recursive process in which the researcher interacts with the information throughout the investigative process.In other words, unlike some forms of research in which the data are examined only at the end of information collection period ,case study research involves ongoing examination and interpretation of the data in order to reach tentative conclusions and to refine the research questions .Case study researchers adhere to several guidelines as they simultaneously summarize and interpret information gathered when doing case study research. One guideline involves ongoing refinement of the study’s fundamental research questions in light of data obtained early in the investigation. For example, a teacher interested in factors that contribute to student attrition may discern from initial observations of her school’s classroom that rates.As a result,she may refine her initial questions from , What factors contribute to student attrition? to, Why are attention rates higher in classrooms in which teachers lecture exclusively?  Another guideline suggests constant focus on the research questions being investigated .A case study researcher can feel overwhelmed by the large amount of information normally obtained from interviews ,observations and documents. For example, a nurse exploring his hospital’s employment practices may generate 300 pages of transcribed interview data, several dozen pages of field notes describing observations of his hospital, and the number of pieces of potentially relevant physical evidence . A way to control the resulting sense of helplessness is to constantly remind oneself of the fundamental research questions being explored in the study.Each new piece of information should be examined in the light of these fundamental questions. A third guideline involves collection and interpretation of only those data that are potentially meaningful to the research effort .Although premature elimination of potential information is equally counterproductive .For example, a technology specialist seeking insights into her companies software...