DCR Students –
Thanks for your active participation in the Sample Size Quiz on Tuesday! I’ve got some notes for improvement next year, but if you have more suggestions please send them. Also, will the student with the handle “MS” (who came in third place in the quiz) please email me at mpletcher@epi.ucsf.edu)? Thanks.
I hope sample size planning is going well for your projects. I encourage you to try many variations of your study design, and see how the sample size changes. Not only will it give you a “feel” for the calculations involved and the size that different types of studies need to be, but you may actually find a variation for your own project you hadn’t thought of that gets more squarely into that sweet spot of feasibility and importance. Remember my motto – calculate sample size early and often.
Week 4 in DCR is fun – we will be revisiting study designs, and diving more deeply into observational studies in particular, with readings in the book and a lecture by Warren Browner. Warren is a long-standing member of our department who is now the CEO of California Pacific Medical Center – he’s got a unique perspective, and is a very engaging lecturer.
This week’s assignment includes drafting additional sections of your protocol (study design overview and measurements), as well as a 1-page outline for a DIFFERENT study. This is one of my favorite assignments of the summer, because it will force you to switch your focus from your main study and dream a little bit about what you might do in the future (i.e., relax the requirement for near-term feasibility). Think ahead to a massive RCT! Challenge yourself to think through what it means to do a case-control study! If you are doing a secondary data analysis for your main project, design a primary data collection study for this one. Etc. Have fun with it. Maybe you’ll even decide that this “alternate” design should be the one you focus on…
Lecture 4 slides and Assignment 4 are posted now on the syllabus. See you on Tuesday.