Hi DCR – I hope most of you are now feeling pretty good about your sample size calculations. I know the small group leaders are thinking hard about your submissions and trying to give you good advice; I encourage you to carefully consider their advice and keep revising that section in your protocol until you are really feeling confident about it. It’s something we look at carefully in your Final Projects to make sure it hangs together.
Week 4 is a fun week in DCR. This is the week you get to put together an outline for an ALTERNATIVE study. Time to dream big, with an ideal RCT you might want to do in 10 years; or take a completely different tack with your basic research question, with a different study design, and see how it might play out. If you are currently planning a study where the data have ALREADY been collected, try designing a primary data collection study that you think could be feasible – this will get you thinking about recruitment, sample size and measurement issues in a very different way. Your choice! Hope you enjoy the exercise. You’ll also get to dig into measurement issues, which is also core stuff for your study protocol.
As in my other email, Tom Newman will staff Office Hours tomorrow. I’ll be back on Tuesday morning, see you then at least for course announcements at 9:45.
Mark