This course introduces students to the principles, laws, and policies that influence the use of animal and alternative, non-animal-based (humane sciences) research techniques in biomedical research.

I designed the course for graduate students who use statistics in their research, plan to use statistics, or need to interpret statistical analyses performed by others. The primary audience are graduate students in the environmental sciences, but the course should benefit just about anyone who is in graduate school in the natural sciences. The course is not designed for those who want a simple overview of statistics; we’ll learn by analyzing real data. This course or equivalent is required for UMB Biology and EEOS Ph.D. students. It is a recommended course for several of the intercampus graduate school of marine science program options.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe the different research methods used by psychologistsDiscuss the strengths and weaknesses of case studies, naturalistic observation, surveys, and archival research

After reading this module, you will be able to:Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of archivall research and case studiesDescribe longitudinal, cross-sectional, and sequential research designs

After reading this module, you will be able to:Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of archivall research and case studiesDescribe longitudinal, cross-sectional, and sequential research designs

This unit covers basic research methods in an easily accessible way, and includes research tips and pros and cons for each method. It also takes learners through a step-by-step approach to planning research.

Choosing & Using Sources presents a process for academic research and writing, from formulating your research question to selecting good information and using it effectively in your research assignments. Additional chapters cover understanding types of sources, searching for information, and avoiding plagiarism. Each chapter includes self-quizzes and activities to reinforce core concepts and help you apply them. There are also appendices for quick reference on search tools, copyright basics, and fair use.

Drug research has contributed more to the progress of medicine during the past century than any other scientific factor. With lecture snippets of Gerhard Domagk, Gertrude Elion and Brian Kobilka this Mini Lectures introduces to the fundamental research methods of drug targeting.

The designing, collecting, analyzing, and reporting of psychological studies entail many choices that are often arbitrary. The opportunistic use of these so-called researcher degrees of freedom aimed at obtaining statistically significant results is problematic because it enhances the chances of false positive results and may inflate effect size estimates. In this review article, we present an extensive list of 34 degrees of freedom that researchers have in formulating hypotheses, and in designing, running, analyzing, and reporting of psychological research. The list can be used in research methods education, and as a checklist to assess the quality of preregistrations and to determine the potential for bias due to (arbitrary) choices in unregistered studies.

In animal experiments, animals, husbandry and test procedures are traditionally standardized to maximize test sensitivity and minimize animal use, assuming that this will also guarantee reproducibility. However, by reducing within-experiment variation, standardization may limit inference to the specific experimental conditions. Indeed, we have recently shown in mice that standardization may generate spurious results in behavioral tests, accounting for poor reproducibility, and that this can be avoided by population heterogenization through systematic variation of experimental conditions. Here, we examined whether a simple form of heterogenization effectively improves reproducibility of test results in a multi-laboratory situation. Each of six laboratories independently ordered 64 female mice of two inbred strains (C57BL/6NCrl, DBA/2NCrl) and examined them for strain differences in five commonly used behavioral tests under two different experimental designs. In the standardized design, experimental conditions were standardized as much as possible in each laboratory, while they were systematically varied with respect to the animals' test age and cage enrichment in the heterogenized design. Although heterogenization tended to improve reproducibility by increasing within-experiment variation relative to between-experiment variation, the effect was too weak to account for the large variation between laboratories. However, our findings confirm the potential of systematic heterogenization for improving reproducibility of animal experiments and highlight the need for effective and practicable heterogenization strategies.

This exercise guides students through reading and outlining an empirical journal article. It reviews the basic structure of empirical journal articles and prompts students to take detailed notes of each article as they read.

This exercise guides students through how to outline a non-empirical (theoretical, philosophical, practical) journal article. Students are prompted to take detailed notes as they read within a structured format.

This course presents the overarching framework, principles, and core responsibilities of public health research and practice from a multidisciplinary perspective. The course also provides the necessary foundation for further studies toward advanced cross-cutting approaches essential for public health practice.

This short guidebook provides information about selecting a research topic and research questions, searching for literature, reading and understanding scholarly writing, and writing a literature review to synthesize what is known and what remains to be learned about a social problem. For students who appreciate the availability of resources on the internet, it also provides links to additional materials. It can be used with its companion textbook, Foundations of Social Work Research by Rebecca L. Mauldin and Matthew DeCarlo, or as a stand-alone guide.

Limiting the debilitating consequences of ageing is a major medical challenge of our time. Robust pharmacological interventions that promote healthy ageing across diverse genetic backgrounds may engage conserved longevity pathways. Here we report results from the Caenorhabditis Intervention Testing Program in assessing longevity variation across 22 Caenorhabditis strains spanning 3 species, using multiple replicates collected across three independent laboratories. Reproducibility between test sites is high, whereas individual trial reproducibility is relatively low. Of ten pro-longevity chemicals tested, six significantly extend lifespan in at least one strain. Three reported dietary restriction mimetics are mainly effective across C. elegans strains, indicating species and strain-specific responses. In contrast, the amyloid dye ThioflavinT is both potent and robust across the strains. Our results highlight promising pharmacological leads and demonstrate the importance of assessing lifespans of discrete cohorts across repeat studies to capture biological variation in the search for reproducible ageing interventions.

The last ten years have witnessed increasing awareness of questionable research practices (QRPs) in the life sciences, including p-hacking, HARKing, lack of replication, publication bias, low statistical power and lack of data sharing (see Figure 1). Concerns about such behaviours have been raised repeatedly for over half a century but the incentive structure of academia has not changed to address them. Despite the complex motivations that drive academia, many QRPs stem from the simple fact that the incentives which offer success to individual scientists conflict with what is best for science. On the one hand are a set of gold standards that centuries of the scientific method have proven to be crucial for discovery: rigour, reproducibility, and transparency. On the other hand are a set of opposing principles born out of the academic career model: the drive to produce novel and striking results, the importance of confirming prior expectations, and the need to protect research interests from competitors. Within a culture that pressures scientists to produce rather than discover, the outcome is a biased and impoverished science in which most published results are either unconfirmed genuine discoveries or unchallenged fallacies. This observation implies no moral judgement of scientists, who are as much victims of this system as they are perpetrators.

This unit introduces you to analysing academic writing and, in particular, the way an article might be structured to clearly explain an investigation to other researchers. It explores observation of children and young people using qualitative observation approaches in small-scale studies.

This is the textbook (reader) for the course Introduction to Academic Research, taught at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen (The Netherlands). This is a compilation of four chapters from 3 different textbooks that are classified as open educational resources (OER) and together provide the accompanying literature for the course.

The chapters cover the following topics:
- Academic research and the research process
- What are spatial sciences?
- Theories in scientific research
- Research ethics

The original sources of the chapters in this textbook are mentioned on every page. These texts are taken almost verbatim from the mentioned sources; small adjustments have been made for the consistency of referencing, providing a little context, or aligning the numbering of sections.

Introduction to Political Science Research Methods, 1st edition, is an Open Education Resource Textbook that surveys the research methods employed in political science. The textbook includes chapters that cover: history and development of the empirical study of politics; the scientific method; theories, hypotheses, variables, and units; conceptualization, operationalization and measurement of political concepts; elements of research design including the logic of sampling; qualitative and quantitative research methods and means of analysis; and research ethics.

Authors:
- Josh Franco, Cuyamaca College
- Charlotte Lee, Berkeley City College
- Kau Vue, Fresno City College
- Dino Bozonelos, Victor Valley College
- Masa Omae, San Diego City College
- Steven Cauchon, Imperial Valley College

PDF Version ISBN: 978-1-7351980-0-2