LECTURE NOTES 
                                        
                            For Health Science Students 
                                        
                                        
                                        
                                        
                                          
               Research Methodology 
                                          
                                          
                                        
                                        
                                        
                                               
                                        
                                        
                                        
                                  Getu Degu 
                                Tegbar Yigzaw 
                                        
                              University of Gondar 
                                        
                                        
             In collaboration with the Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative, The Carter Center, 
                  the Ethiopia Ministry of Health, and the Ethiopia Ministry of Education 
                                        
                                     2006 
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
                                        
             Funded under USAID Cooperative Agreement No. 663-A-00-00-0358-00. 
                               
                               
          Produced in collaboration with the Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative, The Carter 
            Center, the Ethiopia Ministry of Health, and the Ethiopia Ministry of Education. 
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
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         ©2006 by Getu Degu and Tegbar Yigzaw 
          
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          This material is intended for educational use only by practicing health care workers or 
                    students and faculty in a health care field. 
         
                           PREFACE 
         
        This lecture note on research methodology is primarily aimed at health science 
        students. It is also hoped to be useful for other individuals who would like to understand 
        the basic principles and undertake health research. There is a strong belief that it will 
        serve as a guideline for undergraduate health science students as they are required to 
        identify the most important health problems and carry out some research work. 
         
        Chapter one deals with the general introduction and it is devoted to giving basic 
        definitions of important terms and characteristics of research in general and health 
        research in particular. Chapter two gives the guidelines useful for the identification and 
        selection of a research topic. The questions relating to whether a research problem is 
        adequately analyzed and whether it is clearly stated are addressed in Chapter three. 
        Chapters four and five deal with literature review and the development of research 
        objectives, respectively. A special emphasis is given to Chapter six which is the Chapter 
        that contains the many elements of the "Methods" section of a research proposal. 
        Chapter seven deals with the development of a Work plan and the preparation of a 
        budget for a given study. 
         
        A summary of the major components and outline of the different phases in a research 
        process (proposal development, fieldwork and report writing) is given in Chapter eight. 
        This Chapter presents the format that an investigator may follow when writing the final 
        draft of his/her health research proposal. It also gives the guidelines for writing a report. 
        The last chapter is devoted to giving a brief account of the definitions of common terms 
        applied in computer use and the application of some statistical packages. A special 
        emphasis is given to Epi6. 
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      In general, this lecture note tries to cover the three major components of a research 
      process: development of the research proposal, fieldwork (data collection) and write-up 
      of the scientific report. General learning objectives followed by introductory sections 
      which are specific to each chapter are placed at the beginning of most of the chapters. 
      The lecture note also includes a number of exercises for the students so that they can 
      examine themselves whether they have understood the topic under consideration.  It is 
      assumed that this lecture note on research methodology will be given to health science 
      students who have taken basic Epidemiology and Biostatistics courses.  
       
      It is also important to note that this lecture note focuses on quantitative research. When 
      the point of discussion refers to qualitative research, it would be clearly shown so as to 
      avoid the confusion that may arise.  A few reference materials are given at the end of 
      the lecture note for further reading. 
                           
       
                                                                                                
                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
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