Assignment Overview:

The purpose is to give student the opportunity to learn how to conduct a literature search and interpret and evaluate scientific studies in your discipline

To succeed on Assignment One, do the following:

1. Study the assigned readings.
2. Work on the elements of the assignments. Reflect how the tasks of the assignment relate to the readings and give you practice applying the concepts.
3. Ask questions in class by
   1. emailing your instructor.
   2. coming to class. Remember class is not required and is student-driven. Your questions will be answered and we will discuss the current assignment and concepts.
   3. using the conference by clicking on Socratic Dialog in the left menu bar.

Reading Assignment

1. Read these three pages from The Research Methods Knowledge Base by William Trochim.
   1. The Yin and the Yang of Research.
   2. Five Big Words.
   3. Types of Questions.
2. The Whole Art of Deduction - Study Chapters 1 through 5.
3. The Research Methods Knowledge Base by William Trochim. Review these chapters: Sampling, Measurement, and Design. Focus on the concepts of validity, reliability, internal validity, and measurement.
4. If you are not familiar with using web resources, please browse and study sections of your choosing in the How to Guides at the Moody Medical Library's web page.
5. Finally, everyone read this section on Qualitative Research from The Research Methods Knowledge Base by William Trochim.

1. Search MEDLINE through the Moody Medical Library. You can use either Medline or Journals@Ovid Full Text. The later can lead you to on-line full text versions of articles, thus saving a trip to the library. Access is based on your IP address or use your UTMB email user name and password. Follow directions at the site.
2. Search MEDLINE for free. A simple MEDLINE search can be done from the first web page you see, and there are options to refine your search. This link can be accessed anywhere.
3. A complete list of all searchable data bases and full-text, on-line journals is found on the MML databases page. The information symbol   gives you information about the database and clicking on the database name takes you to it. Two good sources are Ideal and Science Direct. The article you want may not be on-line and then you will need to get it on paper.
4. More Online Medical Journals
   1. British Medical Journal
   2. Evidence-Based Medicine
   3. The Lancet
   4. Medical Education Online
   5. New England Journal of Medicine
   6. American Medical Association on-line journals, including JAMA and other journals. Some are full-text.
   7. Stanford University's Highwire Press. This is a great site!
   8. The Qualitative Report - An online journal dedicated to qualitative research since 1990. An example of a qualitative research article: Allen, J. R., & St. George, S. A. (2001, September). What couples say works in domestic violence therapy. The Qualitative Report, 6(3). Retieved January 2002, from http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR6-3/allen.html.