Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: Sep 24, 2010

Present: Liz Chen, Abby Crocker, Kairn Kelley, Amanda Kennedy, Rodger Kessler, Ben Littenberg, Charlie MacLean, Connie van Eeghen

1. Round Table: Sometimes our self-assessed failures as teachers can be reconsidered as successes; Abby and Connie shared some good examples

2. Kairn’s Topic
a. Based on past work and data collected; now organized into a defined study question and plan
b. Research question (also the proposed dissertation question): How do target word and subject characteristics influence rater agreement when scoring children’s responses to items on the dichotic words test? Is this a “FINER” research/dissertation topic:
i. Feasible: data already collected
ii. Interesting: yes, to Kairn
iii. Novel: no other research found
iv. Ethical: perhaps political issues, no ethical concerns
v. Relevant: yes, about improving the precision of a class of clinical tests
c. Kairn’s model represents characteristics of the words themselves and the speakers who say them. The focus is what caused the two raters to disagree on interpretation of items on the word test. The raters (who are the subjects of the study) have already been compared to each other and are equivalent in terms of hearing ability.

d. The work ahead:
i. Clarify the model above based on literature (including Amanda’s recommendation to review the work of Bruce Lambert, U of Chicago; studied drug names and the sounds that get confused)
ii. Appropriate statistical test and analysis
iii. How to translate the above into an analytic plan that can be applied to audiology test result assessment in the field
iv. Define the outcome: the graph, table, or conclusion that will answer the research question

3. Next Workshop Meeting(s): Friday, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., at Given Courtyard Level 4
a. Oct 1: Connie’s update on qualitative analysis - or other suggestion?
b. Oct 8:
c. Oct 15:
d. Oct 22:
e. Oct 29: Rodger’s article on Behavior’s Influence on Medical Conditions (unpublished)
e. Future agenda to consider:
i. Rodger: Mixed methods article
ii. Future: Review of different types of journal articles (lit review, case study, original article, letter to editor…), when each is appropriate, tips on planning/writing (Abby)
iii. Future: Informed consent QI: Connie to follow up with Nancy Stalnaker, Alan Rubin will follow up with Alan Wortheimer or Rob McCauly
iv. Kairn will ask a librarian to join us for selected issues

4. Fellows document – to be reviewed in the future. We trialed Wednesday meeting times, which started May 5, 2010 and continued until August 25, 2010. We returned to Friday meetings on Sept 3, 2010

Recorder: Connie van Eeghen