Water-wings for new researchers | |
Health science research. A handbook of quantitative methods. Jennifer K Peat, Katrina Williams, Wei Xuan and Craig Mellis. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2001 (xiv + 313 pp). ISBN 1 86508 365 8. |
For many of us, entry into research is an experience that goes something like this: the grey, wizened supervisor shows us around the glorious lakeside office, leads us by the hand to the water’s edge, invites us to survey the horizon, ostensibly to contemplate our future, then pushes us in, yelling “Swim or sink!”. Some of us make it back to shore; many don’t and few find the experience pleasant. Enter Jennifer Peat, who has compiled what amounts to a training manual for beginning researchers. She has called it a “handbook” and it certainly lives up to this claim. It is written in a straightforward manner and from an operational perspective. The book’s structure makes it easy for readers to apply the material to their own fields, and the novice researcher will appreciate the way in which Peat and colleagues are able to distil significant points. This book differs from similar texts on the market in two ways. First, the authors have a broad, first-hand knowledge and experience of research conducted in the Australian context. Second, this is one of the few books of research methodology that is built around the principles of evidence-based practice (EBP). Other books have tended to skirt the issue — the authors embrace it with a vengeance and in doing so make the book more relevant as the EBP paradigm gains acceptance. However, before you all go out and purchase the book, realise that its strength is also its weakness. In providing a broad overview of research in the health sciences, the authors do not provide much depth. For instance, there is only a paragraph on equipoise. Data management issues are contained in a six-page chapter. The issue, then, becomes one of expectation. If you’re after a book that offers an overview of current quantitative research methods in the health sciences, you’ll find the information here. But if you’re after a substantive exposition of a specific aspect of research, go somewhere else. Elmer V S Villanueva
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