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Five weak studies do not automatically outweigh one strong study. Evidence should influence a conclusion according to what it can reliably tell you, not simply because it adds another citation to the literature.
Read Guide →Published journal articles may represent only part of the available evidence. Learn when grey and unpublished literature can materially improve your review and how to use it without lowering your standards of appraisal.
Read Guide →Publication and peer review do not eliminate methodological weaknesses. Learn how to evaluate what a study actually did, how much bias its design permits, and how much evidential weight its findings deserve.
Read Guide →A conclusion becomes no more certain simply because many authors repeat it. Learn how to work backward from interpretation to design, measurements, estimates, and uncertainty to determine what the evidence actually establishes.
Read Guide →A literature review can contain recent papers and still be out of date. Learn how to judge search currency based on when you actually searched, how quickly the field changes, and whether new evidence could alter your conclusions.
Read Guide →A researcher’s background and position can influence what questions seem important, who participates, what people disclose, how evidence is generated, and how findings are interpreted. The relevant influences depend on the particular researcher, study, setting, and methodology.
Read Guide →Research objectives can sometimes change after data collection begins, but the timing and reason matter. Legitimate amendments should be distinguished from changes made because researchers have already seen results they prefer.
Read Guide →An objective promises more than the design can deliver when it requires evidence or an inference that the planned study cannot validly produce. The remedy may be to narrow the objective, strengthen the design, or reconsider the research question rather than merely changing a few verbs.
Read Guide →A baseline is a reference point established before the change, intervention, or follow-up of interest. It can be essential for some questions, useful for others, and unnecessary when the study does not depend on measuring a starting condition.
Read Guide →Data collection methods make different trade-offs between depth, breadth, standardization, and flexibility. Understanding those trade-offs can help you choose a method that fits what your research question actually needs.
Read Guide →A representative sample is meaningful only in relation to a specified population. Learn what representativeness actually requires, how researchers assess it, and why not every worthwhile study needs a statistically representative sample.
Read Guide →A research protocol benefits from review by people who can evaluate its scientific logic, methods, analysis, feasibility, and ethical implications. The right reviewers depend on the study, and formal ethics review should not be confused with the broader methodological review a protocol may need.
Read Guide →Preregistration records important research decisions before the results are known, while Registered Reports add peer review before the study is completed. Neither requires researchers to predict everything perfectly or abandon legitimate changes and exploration.
Read Guide →Preregistration creates a time-stamped record of important research decisions before the relevant results are known. Its main value is making it easier to distinguish advance plans from decisions influenced by the data.
Read Guide →Preregistration records what you planned before seeing the relevant results; it does not require you to follow a flawed or impractical plan forever. Changes can be legitimate when they are disclosed, justified, and interpreted appropriately.
Read Guide →A protocol describes how you plan to conduct a study; preregistration creates a time-stamped record of research decisions before the relevant results are known. The same document can sometimes serve both purposes, but the concepts are not interchangeable.
Read Guide →Preregistration records a study plan before the relevant results are known. A Registered Report adds prospective journal peer review and in-principle acceptance, making publication less dependent on how the results turn out.
Read Guide →Preregistration can make important research decisions more transparent and encourage advance planning, but it cannot turn weak methods into strong ones. A preregistered study still needs to be evaluated on its design, measurement, sampling, analysis, execution, and interpretation.
Read Guide →Research ethics and research integrity overlap, but they are not interchangeable. Ethics asks whether research is ethically defensible, while integrity concerns whether research is conducted and represented in ways that uphold the standards and values of trustworthy research.
Read Guide →An IRB or research ethics committee does more than inspect your consent form. It evaluates whether the study is ethically acceptable as a whole, including its design, risks, participant selection, consent process, privacy protections, and safeguards.
Read Guide →Researchers do not universally need final ethics approval before applying for funding, and some funders request approval later in the award process. What matters is that required ethics approval is obtained before the covered human-participant research begins and according to the funder's specific conditions.
Read Guide →Research design is not separate from research ethics. An ethics committee needs to understand how a study is designed because poor or inappropriate methods can expose participants to burdens without a reasonable prospect of producing useful knowledge.
Read Guide →An ethics committee may request a change intended to protect participants that also creates a methodological problem. Learn how to identify the underlying ethical concern, explain the methodological consequence, and propose a defensible alternative.
Read Guide →A delay in ethics review can threaten research tied to an outbreak, event, policy change, school term, disaster, or other closing window. Urgency matters, but it does not ordinarily replace the need for appropriate ethics review.
Read Guide →Not every analytical adjustment requires a new ethics review, but some changes can alter study outcomes, data use, scientific validity, or the research described in the approved protocol. The significance depends on what changes and why.
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