Advanced Study Design and Reporting

This capstone unit develops advanced skills for designing, evaluating, and reporting human-subjects research in healthcare and biotechnology contexts. Students synthesize ethics procedures, sampling strategies, experimental and quasi-experimental design choices, and best practices for numerical reporting, references, and documentation to produce rigorously justified study reports.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze sampling strategies (random, convenience, small-sample, and stratified approaches) and determine appropriate sample size and limitations for given study scenarios
• Apply ethical approval procedures and prepare required documentation for human-subjects research, including informed consent considerations and institutional review submissions
• Evaluate experimental and quasi-experimental designs (including randomized controlled trials, pre-test/comparison groups, and quasi-experiments) for threats to internal and external validity and recommend design improvements
• Demonstrate accurate and professional reporting of quantitative results and supporting materials by rounding and presenting numbers correctly, preparing references and appendices, removing redundancy, and performing final quality checks