Interpreting research in print

Recommended guideline for designing and interpreting of Ramadan fasting studies in medical research

Ramadan fasting is specific intermittent fasting comprising significant changes in routine lifestyle pattern and may affect body homeostasis and metabolism. In spite of several studies conducted on the effects of Ramadan fasting on various aspects of health and disease, because of heterogeneity in methodology and procedures (sometimes inevitable), a comprehensive concluding for reliable results...

Interpreting and reporting qualitative research.

The aims of this paper were to clarify the nature and purpose of qualitative research and to suggest specific guidelines for reporting the results of qualitative studies. Confusion about the purpose of qualitative research and the absence of a standardized format for reporting such research make it difficult to assess the validity of qualitative studies. Four general purposes of qualitative res...

Interpreting nonsignificant findings in psychological research

In this study, we examined the current practice and alternative methods for interpreting nonsignificant findings in psychological research. The traditional null-hypothesis testing presents a challenge for researchers to interpret nonsignificant findings. We reviewed the abstracts of all empirical articles published in three high-esteem psychological journals in 2015 and selected those which ref...

Interpreting kappa in observational research: baserate matters.

Kappa (Cohen, 1960) is a popular agreement statistic used to estimate the accuracy of observers. The response of kappa to differing baserates was examined and methods for estimating the accuracy of observers presented. Results suggest that setting a single value of kappa as "minimally acceptable" (i.e., a criterion value) is not useful in ensuring adequate accuracy of observers. Instead, resear...

Introduction : Innovations in interpreting research methods