Asynchronous means the event or activity is not occurring at the same time. In a classroom, this can mean that students learn the same topic at different times, at their own pace, and from different places.
Learning Modules are usually structured learning materials or content that the learner can progress through in an organized and manageable way. Modules are typically separated by lesson type or by different concepts.
Mixed-Methods Research uses both quantitative and qualitative analysis. For example, researchers may hold focus groups, which are a qualitative method, to help provide deeper insight and context for laboratory findings, which is a quantitative method. This approach may lead to a better understanding of some research problems. Here an example would be where researchers collect quantitative data in a survey on respondents’ demographic information like age, education level, sex and gender, and more, along with their satisfaction ratings of a product. To strengthen this quantitative data, they also do interviews with people to better understand why some people prefer one product over another.
Qualitative Analysis aims to capture human experiences, attitudes, and behaviors which can be hard to quantify with numbers. While there are many types of qualitative analyses, this approach often relies on open-ended and non-number responses, such as responses given in interviews with research participants or as written responses from participants. Researchers then look at these results for themes and patterns. One example of qualitative analysis would be where researchers analyse the interviews of 30 people living with diabetes across Canada to better understand the barriers they face when trying to access medicines.
Quantitative Analysis is used to describe, measure, explain, or predict an area of interest to the health research study, through the collection and analysis of numerical information. An example of quantitative analysis would be where researchers surveyed 100 people. In the survey, people were asked to rate their satisfaction with their family doctor on a scale from 1 to 5 and to estimate how many times they had a doctor appointment in the last year. This was done to better understand if low satisfaction with their family doctor may impact how often a person engages with their doctor.
Statistical Significance is used to determine whether a research result or a relationship is likely to have occurred by or due to chance. Statistical significance is often measured with a probability value, also called a p-value, which is a type of probability measure. It is typical to see a p-value smaller than 0.05 as the cut-off for statistical significance, meaning that there is less than a 5% probability that the study findings are due to chance alone. An example of statistical significance is a study that finds a p-value of 0.02 for the relationship between smoking and developing lung cancer. This p-value is less than 0.05 and means it is likely that there is a relationship between smoking and getting lung cancer, and that this relationship is likely not because of chance alone.
Systematic Reviews involve finding and evaluating all scientific papers on a specific research topic. The results of all of these papers are then summarized and interpreted together. When this is done, potential short-comings in the current research are often found, along with research gaps and where more studies are needed. An example here is where researchers look at all papers on balance training in people with ankle instability to evaluate the effects of balance training.