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BHI Research Methods

MEBI 537, Fall, '08

Philosophy:

As with all required BHI courses, I will attempt to connect the learning objectives of this courses to the broader, cross-cutting themes we have identified for our view of biomedical & health informatics.

Because this is a graduate-level course, I expect students to be self-motivated, and be willing to look beyond the "minimum requirements" of assignments and textbook readings. At the research and graduate level, there are often questions that do not have a simple "right" or "wrong" answers. I also expect that you will understand that I am not an oracle for providing answers, and instead more like a team leader that can help us find answers.

I also expect students in this course to be "adult learners". Thus, my teaching style will be to encourage discussion and participation in the learning process, rather than simply to provide traditional lecture-style teaching.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the course, you should be able to...

  • Distinguish among the variety of different research methods that may be applied in biomedical and health informatics. Operationally, this means recognizing and describing these methods in the BHI research literature.
  • Given an example in the literature that uses a particular research method, you should be able to critique how well (how appropriately, how completely) the work applies the research method. This is one type of critique of the quality of the research.
  • Describe the pros and cons of applying different research methods to answer different research questions. (Note the final project specification)
  • Develop a respect for alternative research methods, even if you are not personally interested in carrying out work in a particular tradition. Operationally, you must understand enough about alternative research methods to converse civilly and intelligently with others that employ those methods. This objective is connected to becoming a multi-disciplinary team leader (see themes)

Last Updated:
Sept, '08

Contact the instructor at: gennari@u.washington.edu