Research Methods and Proposal Writing in Health Information Management

At the end of the course, the students should be able to: 1. discuss the concept of research and its benefit to health information management; 2. describe the types of research; 3. identify the steps in the research process; 4. initiate, conduct and present a research project; 5. recognise the importance of ethics in research; and 6. explain the application of research findings to health information management.

Definitions of research, choosing a research topic in health information management, background to the study formulating statement of problems, stating the objectives of the study, stating research questions and formulation of hypotheses, writing significance of study, scope and limitation of study operational Definition of terms. Methods of surveying the literature, sources of information in project writing. Research designs population of study, sampling procedures and sample size. Design of research instruments, methods of validity and reliability of the research instruments, methods of data collection, data analysis, hypothesis testing using chi-squared (x2 ), students “t” text, f- ratio test, normal distribution, analysis of variance and covariance, non- parametric statistics, correlation regression and time series analysis. Definition of Proposal writing, types of research proposal, Contents of Proposal writing, importance of research proposal, content of introductory section, general and specific objectives, statement of problems, justification for research, essential parts of literature proposal, contents of methodology, sampling techniques, various of data collection methods, data analysis and presentation, components of good work plan, cost analysis for proposed activities. Ciantt’s method of writing work plan, referencing styles, work plan for the proposed activities, executive summary of the proposal or abstract.