Research Methods
This type of research explores experiences, perceptions, and meanings rather than numerical data.
What is qualitative research?
A database often used by occupational therapists to find peer-reviewed research articles.
What is PubMed (or CINAHL, OTseeker, etc.)?
The set of principles ensuring that research participants give permission before being part of a study.
What is informed consent?
This measure of central tendency represents the average of a dataset.
What is the mean?
This OT model focuses on volition, habituation, performance capacity and environment.
What is the Model of Human Occupation (MOHO)?
A study in which neither the participants nor the researchers know who is receiving the treatment.
What is a double-blind study?
The process of integrating clinical expertise, patient values, and the best available research evidence.
What is evidence-based practice (EBP)?
The federal board that reviews and approves research studies to ensure ethical compliance.
What is the Institutional Review Board (IRB)?
This statistical measure describes the spread of data and how far values are from the mean.
What is standard deviation?
This model views occupational performance as the interaction between the person, environment, and occupation.
What is the Person-Environment-Occupation (PEO) model?
The variable that is manipulated or controlled by the researcher in an experiment.
What is the independent variable?
The highest level of evidence in research, often summarizing multiple studies on a topic.
What is a systematic review?
In research, the term for when a participant’s identity and data are protected from being linked.
What is confidentiality?
A statistical test used to determine if there is a significant difference between the means of two groups.
What is a t-test?
This OT model emphasizes the dynamic interaction between personal factors and task demands to enable performance.
What is the Occupational Adaptation (OA) model?
A research method that follows the same group of participants over an extended period of time.
What is a longitudinal study?
The term for how well a research study’s findings apply to real-world settings.
What is external validity?
The principle stating that researchers must do no harm to participants.
What is nonmaleficence?
This term describes the probability that a study’s findings are due to chance rather than a real effect.
What is the p-value?
This OT framework focuses on how sensory input affects occupational participation and function.
What is the Sensory Integration (SI) theory?
This type of study combines data from multiple research studies to increase statistical power.
What is a meta-analysis?
A study design in which the researcher investigates the lived experiences of individuals with similar circumstances through in-depth interviews to gather perceptions, emotions, and meanings.
What is phenomenological design?
This unethical study on syphilis in Alabama led to major reforms in research ethics.
What is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study?
This statistical concept estimates the amount of error in a measurement tool and is used to assess reliability.
What is the Standard Error of Measurement (SEM)?
This model was developed in response to the mechanistic approach and focuses on occupation as a means of promoting health.
What is the Canadian Model of Occupational Performance and Engagement (CMOP-E)?