research topic selection criteria pdf

Selecting a Research Topic: A Framework for Doctoral Students

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This article provides an explanation of the process for selecting a research topic. The article uses Kuhn’s classic work on scientific revolutions to delineate the steps in developing theoretical research within an area. The paper provides methods for preparing to develop a research topic, steps for approaching a research problem, as well as methods for problem theoretical development. We end the article with pitfalls that can occur when selecting a research topic as well as bright spots with regard to doctoral students beginning research in an area. Our hope is that this research will help beginning doctoral students start the process of developing a research topic by providing assistance with the overall process.

Published in International Journal of Doctoral Studies , 7 (2012): 143–152.

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Selecting a Research Topic: Overview

• Refine your topic
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Here are some resources to refer to when selecting a topic and preparing to write a paper:

• MIT Writing and Communication Center "Providing free professional advice about all types of writing and speaking to all members of the MIT community."
• Search Our Collections Find books about writing. Search by subject for: english language grammar; report writing handbooks; technical writing handbooks
• Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation Online version of the book that provides examples and tips on grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and other writing rules.
• Select a topic

Choosing an interesting research topic is your first challenge. Here are some tips:

• Choose a topic that you are interested in! The research process is more relevant if you care about your topic.
• If your topic is too broad, you will find too much information and not be able to focus.
• Background reading can help you choose and limit the scope of your topic. 
• Review the guidelines on topic selection outlined in your assignment.  Ask your professor or TA for suggestions.
• Refer to lecture notes and required texts to refresh your knowledge of the course and assignment.
• Talk about research ideas with a friend.  S/he may be able to help focus your topic by discussing issues that didn't occur to you at first.
• WHY did you choose the topic?  What interests you about it?  Do you have an opinion about the issues involved?
• WHO are the information providers on this topic?  Who might publish information about it?  Who is affected by the topic?  Do you know of organizations or institutions affiliated with the topic?
• WHAT are the major questions for this topic?  Is there a debate about the topic?  Are there a range of issues and viewpoints to consider?
• WHERE is your topic important: at the local, national or international level?  Are there specific places affected by the topic?
• WHEN is/was your topic important?  Is it a current event or an historical issue?  Do you want to compare your topic by time periods?

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Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Methods for Setting Priorities for Guidelines Development; Field MJ, editor. Setting Priorities for Clinical Practice Guidelines. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1995.

Setting Priorities for Clinical Practice Guidelines.

• Hardcopy Version at National Academies Press

2 Criteria for Topic Selection

Many clinical practices have not been scientifically evaluated. Even when evaluations exist, they often have not been compiled in the form of guidelines or other statements that are accessible and persuasive to clinicians, patients, and others who make decisions about the prevention, diagnosis, and management of clinical problems. Because the number of clinical topics for which guidelines might be developed far exceeds the resources for such work, those who sponsor the development of practice guidelines must set priorities to choose among the many possible topics.

Key to any priority-setting process are the criteria for selecting topics. The multiplicity and complexity of aspirations for practice guidelines are reflected in the criteria for guidelines selection set forth in the legislation establishing the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) and in the agency's own statements. This chapter examines these criteria and considers additional ones.

• Current Criteria for Guidelines Topics

As described in Chapter 1 , organizations vary in the criteria they use to select topics for guidelines. Most criteria fall into several broad categories: prevalence of a clinical problem, cost, burden of illness, disagreement or uncertainty about appropriate care, availability of evidence on which to base judgments, potential impact of guidelines, and relevance to particular concerns of the sponsor.

The 1989 and 1992 legislation creating AHCPR described several general factors for its administrator to consider in selecting topics for guidelines development ( Table 2.1 ). It specified additional criteria for the first three guidelines that the agency developed. In addition, the legislation stated that AHCPR guidelines should be based on the best scientific evidence available. The availability of scientific evidence related to a potential topic could thus be viewed as an implicit criterion to be considered in topic selection.

Legislative Criteria for Selection of Guidelines Topics for AHCPR's Forum on Quality and Effectiveness in Health Care, from P.L. 102-239 (1989) and P.L. 102-410 (1992).

In a 1993 Federal Register notice, the agency listed several factors that would be considered in selecting topics for guidelines (AHCPR, 1993). Actually, the notice set forth two slightly different lists at different places in the text. The (combined) list, shown in Table 2.2 , is drawn from the legislative language but differs from it in some respects. Although the intent behind the changes is not clear to the committee, several differences are worth noting. Specifically,

Priority-Setting Criteria Specified By the Forum.

• The 1989 legislation, in discussing initial guidelines, refers to Title XVIII (Medicare) expenditures, practice variations, and "needs and priorities," whereas the notice refers to "specific needs of the Medicare and Medicaid populations." Comment : The notice draws attention to the federal and state Medicaid program (Title XIX), which covers many children and younger adults.
• The original legislation refers only to Medicare expenditures, whereas the notice refers to "cost of the condition to all payers, including patients." Comment : Again, the notice extends the selection criterion, this time from Medicare to all payers.
• The legislation refers to "clinically significant variations among physicians," but the notice does not include the reference to physicians. Comment : By eliminating this qualification, the notice extends the criterion implicitly to include all practitioners (e.g., nurses, dentists) and, potentially, patients (whose decisions may also have an important effect on outcomes).
• The legislation refers to improvements "for the benefit of a significant number of individuals," whereas the notice lists as a criterion "the number of individuals affected by the condition" (emphasis added). Comment : Both statements relate to the prevalence of a problem, but the legislative language also puts some emphasis on the potential for desired changes.
• The legislation refers to the extent to which guidelines would "improve methods of diagnosis, treatment, and clinical management" or "reduce clinically significant variations" in services and outcomes (emphasis added). The notice picks up only the latter point. Comment : The concept of variation reduction is prominent in the literature on continuous quality improvement, which seems to treat variation as something to be eliminated unless proved valuable.

In various documents, the Forum also mentions other, less explicit criteria for considering guidelines topics. One such criterion is whether other organizations have developed guidelines related to a nominated topic. Another involves the fit between Forum resources and the estimated cost of developing particular sets of guidelines.

In addition, AHCPR staff have convened practitioner groups to identify potential topics within broad clinical areas (e.g., neurology). According to Forum staff, the choice of these topic areas reflected the agency's interests in (1) topics of concern to nursing and allied health practitioners and (2) topics covering major organ systems. These interests constitute implicit criteria for topic selection.

• Current Criteria for Technology Assessment

The Office of Health Technology Assessment (OHTA) has also published its criteria for topic selection in the Federal Register (AHCPR, 1994). The criteria are nearly identical to those stated in the 1992 reauthorization legislation ( Table 2.3 ). (The 1989 legislation did not include specific criteria, although it referred to a process of priority setting for selecting topics.)

Criteria for Setting Priorities for Selecting OHTA Technology Assessment Topics.

The criteria listed by OHTA generally follow those set forth in the 1992 IOM report on priority setting for technology assessment (see Appendix A for summary). Where they differ, they reflect language used in the 1992 legislation reauthorizing AHCPR. First, the OHTA refers to the potential of an assessment "to improve health outcomes or affect costs," as if one rather than two criteria were involved or as if only one or the other criterion would be considered. In the committee's view, potential to improve health outcomes and potential to affect costs should be treated as distinct criteria and scored separately.

Second, the combined use of three criteria—prevalence, economic burden ("total … cost per case per year of managing a condition"), and aggregate cost of use of a technology—appears to "double count" prevalence as a criterion. 1 Third, the OHTA use of "mortality and morbidity" as a criterion is conceptually narrower than the model process's "burden of illness.'' The latter concept encompasses functional status and burdens on family members. In this committee's view, that concept provides a broader and more appropriate understanding of patient outcomes.

• Differences in Criteria for Guidelines and Technology Assessment

The priority-setting criteria as now stated by the Forum and the OHTA are fairly similar. Several differences can, however, be noted.

Unlike the guidelines criteria, the technology assessment criteria do not explicitly refer to the needs of the Medicare and Medicaid populations. OHTA does, nonetheless, conduct the majority of its assessments in response to requests from the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs. 2 Provisions of the 1992 reauthorization legislation called for OHTA to look beyond these responsibilities in selecting topics for technology assessment, but the impacts of these provisions are unclear. 3

Also in contrast to the Forum criteria, the OHTA criteria do not mention the availability of scientific evidence. In fact, the OHTA notice in the Federal Register explicitly says that "the availability of sufficient data" should not affect "whether but how a technology assessment should be done." That is, if an assessment is important but cannot be addressed through scientific evidence, then the careful use of expert consensus may be preferable to avoiding the topic. This position is consistent with that stated in the IOM's 1992 report on priority setting for technology assessment (IOM, 1992b). One participant in the workshop sponsored by the committee (see Appendix B ) noted, for example, that an argument against guidelines in areas with little or no relevant evidence is essentially an argument in favor of random variation in practice.

Another difference between the Forum and OHTA criteria is that the latter are somewhat more explicit about the relevance of expected health outcomes. In addition, the latter criteria include three references to costs versus one reference in the Forum criteria.

Also in contrast to OHTA, the Forum criteria make no mention of ethical, social, or legal issues, nor does the legislation that created the Forum. However, on the basis of its knowledge of AHCPR and the Forum, the committee concluded that the Forum has implicitly considered the potential of a guideline to inform ethical, legal, or social issues in selecting some past topics for guidelines. For example, the selection of sickle-cell management is, in the committee's view, evidence of Forum concern with a problem of special importance to African-Americans. Similarly, in the list of possible guidelines topics published in September 1993, the inclusion of genetic screening and counseling during pregnancy undoubtedly reflects a mix of social, legal, and ethical concerns.

• Toward Common Criteria?

Is it reasonable for topic selection criteria to differ for the Forum and OHTA? The committee concluded that, by and large, it is not. That is, both organizations are part of an agency charged with the broad objective of improving the quality, appropriateness, and effectiveness of health care services by extending and linking scientific knowledge to improve clinical practice and health outcomes. Both are supposed to be sensitive to health care costs and the specific needs of federally financed health problems, although only OHTA is responsible for making recommendations related to reimbursement.

The committee concluded that the Forum and the OHTA should move toward common criteria and definitions for priority setting. Where criteria differ, the differences should reflect differences in each unit's responsibilities.

In assessing how existing Forum and OHTA criteria might be revised and combined, the committee separated criteria into two categories: general and agency specific. General criteria are those that would figure into almost any organization's consideration of priorities. Agency-specific criteria reflect legislative mandates or other special factors relevant to an organization's particular missions. The committee concluded that the general criteria are the most amenable to "scoring" and inclusion in a formal decision model such as that discussed later in this chapter.

General Criteria

The committee recommended that six general criteria be applied in considering topics for either guidelines development or technology assessment. These criteria are

Prevalence of the clinical problem: number of affected persons per 1,000 persons in the general U.S. population. 4

Burden of illness imposed by the problem: individual mortality, morbidity, or functional impairment.

Cost of managing the problem: cost per person.

Variability in practice: significant differences in utilization rates for prevention, diagnosis, or treatment options.

Potential of a guideline or assessment to improve health outcomes: expected effect on health outcomes.

Potential of guideline or assessment to reduce costs: expected effect on costs (to sponsoring organization, other relevant agencies, patients and families, and/or society in general).

Although this list includes many current Forum and OHTA criteria, it follows more closely the list set forth in the 1992 IOM report on priority setting. A few inclusions and exclusions from the list warrant further discussion.

Potential for Guidelines to Change Health Outcomes or Costs

In addition to considering the potential for guidelines to reduce significant clinical variation, the Forum should explicitly consider the potential for a set of guidelines to foster desired health or cost outcomes. Some of the current criteria focus on the magnitude of a particular variable (e.g., cost of managing a condition or burden of illness), but none reflect the potential for a set of guidelines to change the variable (e.g., reduce costs by 5 percent). The potential for change actually has two components: the expected magnitude of an effect and the probability of achieving it.

Several things must happen if practice guidelines, technology assessments, or similar recommendations are to help improve health, reduce costs, or achieve some other desired result (Eddy, 1989). First, a guideline development or technology assessment process must produce conclusions with the potential to change clinical practice. In general, if an assessment is likely to yield inconclusive results, the topic would not be a good candidate for selection. In some cases, however, an assessment might be warranted if equivocal findings were expected to discourage overenthusiastic users of a technology.

Second, exposure to the guideline or assessment must actually cause some practitioners to change the way they care for patients. Although numerous guidelines are commonly followed by practitioners, a major criticism of practice guidelines and similar statements is that they are too often ignored or only weakly implemented (Eisenberg, 1986; Kibbe, Kaluzny, and McLaughlin, 1994). Some topics may be better candidates for assessment because the practice changes they would recommend would be more consistent with existing organizational incentives or resources.

Third, a change in practice induced by the implementation of guidelines must change patient-or organization-relevant outcomes (e.g., health status). For example, change must not be limited to physiological variables (e.g., blood chemistry).

Although those selecting guidelines topics should consider the potential for better outcomes, the Forum and other organizations may sometimes reasonably proceed with guidelines when the short-term probability of change is in doubt (e.g., resistance to change appears strong) but the scientific evidence is clear that an alternative to current practice is preferable. Such guidelines may be regarded as an initial phase of a long-term effort to change behavior and improve outcomes—even if the short-term measurable impact of the guidelines is expected to be minimal. The work to develop guidelines for vaginal birth following a previous Caesarean birth (VBAC) is a case in point. The publication of VBAC guidelines certainly did not have an immediate effect, but the persistent effort to find effective ways to convince physicians to apply them is evidence of their perceived importance (Lomas, 1991, 1993).

Social, Ethical, and Legal Considerations

Left out are one of the 1992 IOM criteria and one of the criteria specified for OHTA in the 1992 reauthorization legislation: the potential of the results of an assessment to inform ethical, legal, and social issues. In the current committee's view, this criterion is so multidimensional that it cannot be reasonably captured in a single criterion score. It also is sufficiently subjective that it may be better treated as an umbrella term for agency-specific concerns.

The committee agreed that consideration of such issues is reasonable but that the rationale for focusing on specific social, ethical, or legal concerns should be explicit and should not be divorced from consideration of other selection criteria. For example, if the needs of the Medicare program or prevention objectives are a high priority, then the explanation lies in legislative mandates. In contrast, a focus on nursing or prenatal care warrants additional explanation. A later section of this chapter considers how these kinds of considerations may be systematically factored into a priority-setting process.

Availability of Evidence

The general criterion list also does not include the availability of scientific evidence. The committee noted, however, that one of the comparative advantages of AHCPR as a health services and outcomes research entity is that it is better situated to mobilize expertise to analyze scientific evidence than many other organizations. Its advantage is less clear in situations that require near-exclusive reliance on expert opinion. The committee thus concluded that it makes sense for AHCPR to capitalize on its strengths and to consider the availability of evidence as one factor in selecting topics for the development of practice guidelines. The committee acknowledged, however, that it sometimes may not be possible to assess the availability of evidence until a full-scale literature review is initiated. 5

Moreover, it may sometimes be appropriate for the Forum to select a topic for which little evidence is available. For example, a strong case might be made in some cases that misleading claims of effectiveness for an intervention need to be countered by practice guidelines. An analogy would be the Food and Drug Administration's statements on certain health claims for vitamin supplements.

In any case, the available scientific evidence almost always is insufficient to answer all important questions about a clinical problem, and guidelines can make important contributions by identifying major gaps in clinical knowledge.

• Additional Criteria

Should additional criteria that are neither in the Forum's current criteria set nor in the set just discussed be considered by the Forum? Several criteria not currently in the Forum's list were cited by some of the organizations described in Chapter 1 or suggested by participants in the project workshop.

Two such criteria are the degree of controversy over a problem and the amenability of a controversy to technical clarification. For example, when the National Cancer Institute (NCI) reexamined the issue of breast cancer screening for women aged 40 to 49, it did so because there was significant clinical controversy, one sign of which was contradictory guidelines for clinical practice (NIH, 1994b). In tackling controversial issues, however, public organizations run the risk of antagonizing politically important interests, as NCI did with its judgment that the evidence of benefit from mammography for younger women was inconclusive.

Although wide variations in clinical practice may indicate disagreement or controversy about appropriate clinical practice, consistent practice may also create controversy if it is inappropriate. For example, NIH looked at perinatal corticosteroids because their use in premature labor was so consistently low despite good evidence of benefit (NIH, 1994a). Thus, as a criterion for consideration in topic selection, controversy is distinct from the criterion of practice variability. The committee viewed the existence of controversy and the susceptibility of the controversy to clarification through review of scientific evidence as reasonable factors for AHCPR to consider in the nomination and final selection of topics for guidelines development. These criteria, however, do not appear to be appropriate for inclusion in a formula-based ranking system such as that proposed by OHTA.

Criterion Measurement

In general, agency officials and legislative staff should refer to the 1992 report's discussion of measurement issues, including the importance of using comparable time horizons for comparing alternative clinical interventions (see Appendix A ). In future explanations of its criteria for topic selection, the Forum should provide explicit conceptual definitions and quantitative or qualitative measures for its criteria, even if it does not propose the development of explicit criteria scores. This would help staff and other participants in the process clarify the aspects of the criteria that are of most concern and search for relevant data. A later section of this chapter returns to selected measurement issues related to the relative importance of different criteria.

• The Relative Importance of Individual Criteria

Criteria Weights

Unlike the OHTA and the IOM model processes, the Forum has not assigned explicit weights to its criteria. Neither has it adopted a formula for generating criteria and topic scores. If the Forum eventually moves toward the OHTA process on the basis of that unit's favorable experience with the new process, it will have to consider whether the weights assigned by that unit are consistent with the Forum's objectives. The OHTA weights are generally similar to those adopted in a pilot test of the model process.

The committee did not discuss criteria weights at length. It did note that some analyses suggest that variations in weights have less impact on the results of formal decision analyses than might be expected (vonWinterfeldt and Edwards, 1986). Weighting of all criteria equally may be reasonable.

Measurement Scales

This committee concluded that the 1992 IOM report specified a generally sound methodology for setting priorities for technology assessment. Nevertheless, the committee echoed some concerns raised in the original report about the different scales for quantitative and qualitative criteria (IOM, 1992b). Specifically, scores for qualitative criteria are constrained within a scale from 1 to 5, whereas scores for quantitative criteria (e.g., cost, prevalence) are not so constrained. To address this problem, the scoring formula takes the natural logarithm of each criterion score, which tends to reduce differences in the range of scores between the quantitative and qualitative criteria. For example, if the unit cost of a service was $9,000 and the subjectively judged potential for an assessment to change costs was rated 3.2 on a scale of 1 to 5, the criterion values after the natural logarithm of each value was taken would be 13.66 and 2.33. The difference in scores is greatly reduced, but the effect of scale differences remains substantial.

The 1992 report acknowledged that the unit cost criterion may dominate the final priority score, particularly if is also given a high weight (as it was in both the IOM and OHTA weighting exercises). Experience with the OHTA's use of the criterion scores, weights, and overall scoring formula (assuming OHTA proceeds as planned) will provide analysts an opportunity to assess the effects of these elements on topic rankings. This experience combined with sensitivity analyses (like that just described) may provide a better sense of how best to handle this issue.

If the results appear too skewed toward the unit cost criterion, at least three alternative scoring approaches are possible. One approach is to transform the unconstrained scale for this criterion to a constrained scoring range (e.g., 1 to 5). A second approach is to rely on the final stage of policy approval of topics to make adjustments, for example, to select topics not on the list for consideration. A third approach is, as discussed below, to use procedures that "force" certain types of topics onto the list for the final policy decision on the basis of some other criterion.

Availability of Data

The more a priority-setting process emphasizes the use of empirical information to assess alternative topics, the more vulnerable it may be to overemphasizing variables that can be readily measured and, consequently, to suboptimizing decisions. For example, as has often been acknowledged, mortality is much more easily measured than morbidity, and a priority-setting process that does not account for this may systematically underrate guidelines for chronic conditions for which morbidity and not mortality is the more significant outcome. To cite another example, as part of a cost-effectiveness analysis, it is easier to determine the purchase price of alternative technologies (e.g., $100,000 versus $200,000) than to estimate accurately their expected years of use (e.g., 2 versus 5 years).

Although the committee recognizes that the components of some criteria do not lend themselves to easy measurement, that difficulty is not grounds for discarding the underlying concepts. The committee recommended that those involved in priority setting identify clearly important unmeasured elements and the possible effects of ignoring them. Some form of expert judgment may be used to rate potential guidelines topics on key hard-to-measure variables, with the ratings then used as surrogates for empirical data. In sum, the committee concluded that it is not sufficient to simply acknowledge the problem; rather, the potential for bias should be considered each time topics are scored and ranked against each other.

• Procedures for Applying Criteria

In addition to considering specific selection criteria, the committee discussed more systematic procedures for applying criteria in the Forum's topic selection process. Criteria may be applied simultaneously or sequentially or both. In addition, the application of criteria may involve a single track or multiple tracks for nominating and evaluating topics. The following sections explain these alternatives.

Simultaneous Application of Criteria

The model process that the IOM recommended in 1992 features an explicit, simultaneous procedure for applying seven priority-setting criteria. The procedure takes seven individual criterion scores for a topic (e.g., cost scores) and manipulates them through a single formula to arrive at an overall score that can be compared to other scores to derive a topic rank. That formula is

where W is the criterion weight, ln is the natural logarithm of the criterion score, and S is the criterion score itself.

More common than this formal approach is a process that relies on what is sometimes called "global subjective judgment." Rather than score candidate topics explicitly on each criterion and then aggregate the individual results to arrive at an overall score, this process relies on participants to rank topics on the basis of an implicit (mental) consideration of all the criteria taken together. This is essentially the procedure followed by the Forum in obtaining topic rankings in broad clinical areas from the practitioner panels it convened.

Sequential Application of Criteria

The IOM model process actually recommended the use of both the implicit and the explicit processes described above. An expert panel using global subjective judgment would "winnow" a large number of topics to a smaller number, and that reduced set of topics would be subjected to the explicit scoring process. 6 The rationale for this two-step approach is practical; resources do not permit all nominated topics to be considered in depth. A preliminary screening is necessary.

In addition, an organization may wish or need to apply criteria in sequence for other reasons. In particular, some selection criteria may not readily fit into a single scoring formula. The Forum's legislative mandates are a case in point. The 1989 requirements for three Medicare-related guidelines and the 1992 requirements for three prevention guidelines essentially preclude selection procedures that would allow other criteria to outweigh the mandates completely.

Several examples of possible sequencing processes and their rationales are described below.

Sequencing Example 1. Organization A wishes to select three topics for guideline development based on a social, legal, or ethical consideration—specifically, malpractice claims. The organization generally agrees with the relatively low weight assigned to the social-legal-ethical criterion in both the IOM and OHTA processes, but it expects that the other criteria will dominate the rankings so that no malpractice-related topic will emerge from the process. Thus, the organization decides to "force" the topic selection results it wants by applying selection criteria in two steps. First, it restricts initial topic nominations to clinical conditions or services associated with significant malpractice problems. The nominated topics are then scored and ranked using the remaining criteria and formula specified by IOM and OHTA. The top three candidates satisfy the organization's objective of focusing its next three guidelines on malpractice problems.

Sequencing Example 2. Before it chooses topics for guidelines development, organization B wants to estimate and consider explicitly the likely cost of developing specific guidelines. It goes through the model process for winnowing and ranking topics first and then estimates the development costs for the six highest-ranking topics. Given its budget for guidelines development, it decides that it prefers to do the four topics ranked 1, 4, 5, and 6, which together have the same estimated total production cost as the three topics ranked 1, 2, and 3.

Sequencing Example 3. Organization C wishes to ensure that all of its topics relate to children's health and, more specifically, that at least one topic deals with prevention and one with the management of a chronic disease. The organization "forces" this result by asking that all topics be relevant to children and by emphasizing its particular interest in prevention and chronic illness topics. It then separately scores and ranks the topics in each of the two designated areas and in the "all other" category before deciding which topics to select.

Single-Versus Multiple-Track Processes

Sequencing Example 1 above describes a single-track process for setting priorities. That is, all potential topics are funneled through the same constrained nominating procedure and criterion, the same winnowing procedure, and the same final scoring procedure. Sequencing Example 2 also involves a single track, one in which an additional criterion is applied to all high-ranking topics after a ranked list is generated. Sequencing Example 3, however, describes a multi-track process, one that has three separate funnels or channels for nominating, winnowing, and ranking topics. Figure 2.1 illustrates this process.

Multi-track process for selecting guidelines topics.

Although not as explicit or rigid as Sequencing Example 3, the Forum's use of practitioner panels to consider topics in broad clinical areas amounts to a multi-track and sequential process for setting priorities. Legislative mandates (Medicare priorities and prevention) designate additional topic tracks for special consideration.

The committee agreed that it is reasonable and desirable for the Forum to apply criteria in ways that ensure (or at least make it likely) that certain general kinds of topics appear on the recommended list of topics for guideline development. The committee recommended, however, that the Forum define more explicitly its rationales for selecting clinical areas or other topic categories for special consideration in its priority-setting process. This step will allow interested parties to critique the rationales and contribute to long-term improvement in the entire process, including better ways of establishing broad topic categories for special attention.

• Reassessment of Existing Guidelines

The discussion to this point has focused on the selection of new topics for guidelines development and ignored decisions about the reassessment or updating of existing guidelines. In general, guidelines should be reassessed with an eye toward three objectives:

• incorporation of new knowledge;
• correction of errors of fact or interpretation; and
• alterations in content or format that improve the usefulness of the guidelines.

The continuing advance of scientific knowledge provides the most formidable challenge for those charged with developing and updating practice guidelines. Indeed, the availability of new evidence is generally the only issue raised in most discussions of updating. Regular literature searches are one way to identify new evidence. The solicitation of topics for guidelines development or reassessment is another avenue.

Errors of fact or interpretation do not appear to be common in guidelines such as those developed by AHCPR, but they are possible. Broadly viewed, errors can arise for many reasons, including bias in the original panel, faulty conceptualization of the problem, and even typographical mistakes. Although every organization hopes to avoid such errors in the first place or to correct them as drafts are reviewed and edited, the publication of guidelines is typically an occasion for mistakes or misstatements to be identified. As individuals and groups try to implement the guidelines, other errors may be discovered.

Implementation also provides an opportunity for users to identify ways in which guidelines might be more useful. For example, although those who have tried to implement the Forum's guidelines have found that they sometimes were not specific enough to guide actual patient care decisions, they have praised those guideline documents that have included instruments for patient assessment and outcomes measurement (e.g., the Braden Scale for defining patient risk for pressure ulcers). Users might identify well-tested tools that were overlooked in a set of guidelines and that could be included in an update. Algorithm presentation offers another area in which existing (and new) guidelines may be improved, either by adding algorithms to guidelines that lacked them or by revising those that were included. Although the committee heard considerable disagreement about the utility of algorithms for clinicians, AHCPR panels should be encouraged to use common formats and symbols when they do present algorithms.

Depending on the nature of the text to be corrected or the content or format improvements to be made, staff may take care of updates or revisions without the need for the initial development panel or a new one to be much involved, if at all. (Distribution of corrections may be difficult and expensive, but the committee did not consider these issues.) If the reason for updating guidelines is new evidence, however, then decisions about revisions will likely require a more extensive effort. The options include reconvening the original panel, convening a new panel, or contracting with a private organization to undertake the update.

How should the Forum decide when to invest resources in reassessing and updating existing guidelines? One view suggests treating these topics like any others and subjecting them to regular priority-setting procedures. Another view is that the Forum has a particular responsibility once it publishes guidelines to monitor and maintain them, and thus, these guidelines should have a special status in the topic nomination and selection process. One way to provide such a status is for the Forum to routinely include existing guidelines topics when it solicits comments on proposed topics for guidelines development and to designate a separate ''track" for considering these comments, the results of literature searches, and the established criteria. For the foreseeable future, the committee concluded that the latter course was prudent.

These criteria were specified in the reauthorization legislation. The IOM model process did not include aggregate cost as a separate criterion but treated it as the product of two other criteria, prevalence and cost per person (IOM, 1992b).

HCFA's interest in guidance for Medicare coverage decisions often leads to requests for assessments of relatively obscure or low-prevalence technologies. For example, recent assessments have focused on salivary electrostimulation in Sjogren's Syndrome and implantation of the automatic cardiovertor-defibrillator.

According to a recent GAO report (1994), about 60 percent of OHTA's assessments have been performed at HCFA's request, with virtually all the remainder requested by the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services in the Department of Defense.

In some instances, the Forum or OHTA may wish to consider the incidence of a clinical problem (i.e., new cases per 100,000 in a year) if it perceives that an emerging disease (e.g., AIDS) promises to become a serious issue for clinicians and patients.

The American College of Physicians, for example, has started developing guidelines on some topics only to discover that evidence was insufficient for the kinds of conclusions that it seeks to reach. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force identified the availability of evidence as one topic selection criterion, but then concluded that it lacked the resources to assess availability and explicitly factor it into topic rankings.

One alternative for winnowing topics was to rank them using a single criterion, the one that was weighted most heavily in the overall scoring formula. The topics that ranked highest on that single criterion would then be scored again using the full set of criteria.

• Cite this Page Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Methods for Setting Priorities for Guidelines Development; Field MJ, editor. Setting Priorities for Clinical Practice Guidelines. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1995. 2, Criteria for Topic Selection.
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Abstract This article provides an explanation of the process for selecting a research topic. The article uses Kuhn's classic work on scientific revolutions to delineate the steps in developing theoretical research within an area. The paper provides methods for preparing to develop a research topic, steps for approaching a research problem, as well as methods for problem theoretical development.

Furkan H . Yolcu

Selecting a research topic for dissertations can really trouble students sometimes here a quick and practicable quide

Jaqueline Kidd

After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions: • What are the initial steps for developing an action research project? • How do you generate a topic for action research? • How do you develop a question once you have chosen a topic? • Once you have developed a question, how do you proceed with your action research project? Chapter Aims and Goals The intent of this chapter is to initiate the strategic plan of your action research by identifying a topic of significance and to begin the process of formulating a research question to guide your study. As you proceed through this chapter, you will develop an understanding of • how to begin the action research process, • what makes for a meaningful and productive action research topic, • how to narrow the focus of potential topics, • how to clarify your topic by writing a statement of the problem, • how action research questions are formulated, and • how to evaluate your topic and potential research questions. The challenge of identifying a research topic for your action research project is that there are a multitude of possibilities for you to explore. Most teachers have many questions

Ricielle Precia Viluan

Your research paper, and the resulting thesis statement, must be an ARGUABLE issue. Be prepared to present the actual findings of your research convincingly even if you discover that your findings differ from your personal opinions. Remember, research is objective and not a " soap box " for personal views. The following topics have been divided by subject:

Lisa Hochtritt

Danilo Alain González

sylvia chard

International Journal of Innovative Research in Education

Miloud Bekkar

It is argued that the most critical moment in performing research work is the topic choice. This challenging step comes before undertaking any research work. Almost, the most common researcher’s anxiety that comes to his/her mind is about the success or on the contrary, the failure of the topic choice. This research aims to tackle the common challenges and difficulties while choosing one’s research problem. The study targets a group of postgraduate students of the English language Department at the University of Mascara. Around 25 subjects representing Master II 2021–2022 promotion participated in this study. The research tools include a questionnaire with students and a teacher’s experience in teaching Research Methodology Module at Mascara University. Most participants prefer the topics proposed by their future supervisors. Also, the study tempts to give recommendations for developing students’ research topics and titles. Keywords: Methodology, research work, students, topi...

Alan Dennis

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NIPER Mohali Faculty Recruitment 2024, Eligibility, Selection Process

NIPER Mohali Faculty Recruitment 2024 has been released on official website. Check the Eligibility, Selection Process, Salary and Download NIPER Mohali Faculty Notification 2024 PDF in below Article

Table of Contents

National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research, Mohali has released NIPER Mohali Faculty Recruitment 2024 for the positions of Professor, Associate Professor and Assistant Professor on official website. Interested and qualified candidates can apply online for the NIPER Mohali Assistant professor Recruitment 2024 till 6 May 2024 through official website for 32 Posts.

Interested candidates must go through the NIPER Mohali Professor Recruitment 2024 notification carefully to make sure they don’t miss out on some crucial information. All information related i.e. Eligibility, Application form, to the NIPER Mohali Associate professor Recruitment 2024 is detailed in the following article.

NIPER Mohali Faculty Recruitment 2024

NIPER Mohali Faculty Recruitment 2024 has been started on official website for 32 Posts. Interested candidate must check the below article or official website before applying for the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research, Mohali Recruitment 2024. All the interested candidate can apply online for NIPER Professor Recruitment 2024 through downloading Application Form. The apply link for NIPER Faculty Application Form 2024 has been active from all Posts. Candidate must check the detailed notification before applying for NIPER Teaching Recruitment 2024.

NIPER Mohali Professor Recruitment 2024:  Overview

NIPER issued the Notification for the recruitment of Professor, Associate Professor and Assistant Professor. Candidates can apply for National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research, Mohali Faculty Recruitment 2024 through below article. Refer to the table below to get a detailed overview of NIPER Faculty Recruitment 2024.

NIPER Mohali Teaching Notification 2024 PDF

National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research, Mohali has released official Notification for 32 vacancies of assistant professor, associate professor and professor positions on its website. Candidates who are interested in applying for this position must carefully study the NIPER Notification PDF in order to gain insights into the recruiting details. The candidates can click on the link below to directly download the PDF of the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research, Mohali Teaching Notification PDF.

Download NIPER Mohali Assistant Professor Application Form 2024

NIPER Faculty Recruitment 2024 Application Form is available on official website and can download the NIPER Mohali Assistant Professor Application Form 2024. Candidate must submit the application form to “The Registrar, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research, Sector -67, S.A.S. Nagar (Mohali)-160062, Punjab” till 7 May 2024 and the direct link for downloading the application form has been given below for NIPER Assistant professor Recruitment 2024. By clicking on this link, your online application form will open.

How to Apply for NIPER Mohali Associate Professor Recruitment 2024?

Candidates who meet the requirements and want to apply for the position of Professor, Associate Professor or Assistant Professor can apply for the NIPER Mohali Associate Professor Recruitment 2024 by following the below-mentioned steps.

• Visit the official website of NIPER .
• Locate the Application Form Link for the NIPER  Faculty Recruitment 2024.
• Download Prescribed Application Form
• Applicants meeting all eligibility requirements must submit their applications using the prescribed form till 6 May 2024. Along with the completed form, candidates must enclose attested copies of their testimonials in an envelope clearly indicating the post applied for as “_________________”. The application package should be addressed to: THE REGISTRAR NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF PHARMACEUTICAL EDUCATION & RESEARCH SECTOR-67, S.A.S.NAGAR (MOHALI)-160062, PUNJAB
• Save a copy of the application for future reference.

NIPER Mohali Faculty Eligibility Criteria 2024

The applicants should check the eligibility criteria details well before filling out the NIPER Faculty Recruitment 2024 application form.

NIPER Mohali Professor Eligibility Criteria 2024

• Educational Qualification: Ph.D. with a first-class or equivalent grade in the relevant branch, coupled with an exceptional academic track record.
• Experience Requirement: A minimum of 10 years of teaching, research, or industrial experience.

NIPER Mohali Associate Professor Eligibility Criteria 2024

• Educational Qualification: Ph.D. with a first-class or equivalent grade in the relevant field, accompanied by a consistent and commendable academic performance.
• Experience Requirement: Minimum of 8 years of experience in teaching, research, or industrial roles.

NIPER Mohali Assistant Professor Eligibility Criteria 2024

• Educational Qualification: Possession of a Ph.D. with a first-class or equivalent grade in the relevant discipline, reflecting a consistently strong academic performance.
• Experience Requirement: Minimum of 5 years of experience in teaching, research, or industrial settings.

NIPER Mohali Faculty Selection Process

The selection procedure for NIPER Mohali Faculty Recruitment 2024 includes various stages such as the screening process, interview and document verification. Check out the following section for more details.

• Applications received in response to the advertisement undergo thorough scrutiny by a committee.
• Based on the scrutiny, only candidates who satisfy the eligibility requirements are shortlisted.
• Shortlisted candidates are invited to participate in the selection process.
• The selection process may include presentations, interviews, or other evaluation methods.
• The Competent Authority for the respective post determines the specific methods used.
• Shortlisted candidates may be required to deliver a presentation and/or participate in an interview.
• The final decision regarding the selection process is made by the Competent Authority.

Candidates selected through NIPER Mohali Teaching Recruitment 2024 will receive salary and monthly remuneration based on the details outlined in the table below. It’s crucial for prospective candidates to grasp these particulars to understand the scope of the position they are pursuing

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