A tool you might choose to use to construct your question about effectiveness or about what assessment tool to use.
What is the PICO framework
100
Valuable for determining intervention effectiveness, and therefore reside near the top of the hierarchy for effectiveness questions.
What is experimental design
100
A desired attribute of an outcome study design in which logical arrangements permit causal inferences as to whether the observed outcome really reflects the effectiveness of an intervention.
What is internal validity
100
The degree of consistency in the ratings of behaviors of the people they observe.
What is interrater reliability
100
An approach to reducing the threat of measurement bias whereby those who are administering study measures do not know the treatment status of the people they are assessing.
What is blinding
200
A process for making practice decisions in which practitioners integrate the best research evidence available with their clinical expertise and with client attributes, values, preferences and circumstances.
What is evidence-based practice
200
Often employ flexible designs and subjective methods with small numbers of participants. These designs are well suited for generating new insights, deep understandings, and theoretically rich observations.
What is qualitative study
200
The possibility that other events may have coincided with the provision of the intervention and may be the real cause of the study outcome.
What is history
200
Established by testing the instrument on a group of people to see if it correlates with some external, independent indicator of the same phenomena.
What is criterion validity
200
The extent to which subscores on each half of an instrument correlates with each other.
What is coefficient alpha
300
Regardless of the database or search engine used, the process for retrieving individual studies is similar. This process begins with identifying key words that reflect your practice question.
What is search terms
300
Most useful for questions about circumstances or attributes that best predict prognosis or risk.
What is correlational studies
300
The possibility that developmental growth or change may be the real cause of the study outcome.
What is maturation
300
Consists of providing evidence that two tests that are believed to measure closely related skills or types of knowledge correlate strongly.
What is convergent validity
300
The weakest form of validity that refers to whether the items on an instrument merely seem to measure the intended concept.
What is face validity
400
Simple words (AND, OR, NOT or AND NOT) used as conjunctions to combine or exclude keywords in a search.
What is a boolean operator
400
A statistical approach to synthesizing study outcomes, most often estimating the average strength of an intervention
What is meta-analysis
400
The possibility that extreme scores at pretest that are not reflective of typical functioning are the real cause of the study outcome.
What is regression to the mean
400
High positive correlations among items on an instrument. Any instrument could contain multiple ways of evaluating the same concept.
What is internal consistency reliability
400
A form of concurrent validity that assesses whether the instrument scores accurately differentiate between groups already known to differ in regard to the concept being measured.
What is known-groups validity
500
The possibility of encountering these practical obstacles that limit the ability to implement the EBP process in an ideal fashion.
What is feasibility constraints
500
Contains features similar to experimental designs, but does not employ random assignment.
What is quasi-experiment
500
The possibility that differences in outcomes between two groups being compared may be because the two groups were not really equivalent (comparable) to begin with.
What is selection bias
500
Consists of providing evidence that two tests that do not measure closely related skills or types of knowledge do not correlate strongly.
What is discriminant validity
500
A weaker form of validity assessed by asking a group of experts whether they agree that the items on an instrument adequately cover the full domain of the concept that the instrument intends to measure.