Quantitative Research Designs

Facilitator: Prof Kennedy Otwombe, BEd (Sc), MSc (Mathematical Statistics), PhD (Biostatistics) is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health and Head of Statistics at the Perinatal HIV Research Unit (PHRU), Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, University of the Witwatersrand. He has more than 15 years’ experience working as a research statistician in epidemiological studies and clinical trials. His roles have included conceptualization of research hypothesis, study designs, sample size estimations, sampling, study implementation, statistical analysis and writing manuscripts. As an academic, Prof Otwombe has more than 145 peer reviewed publications in the field of public health. At the School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, he is involved in the teaching of biostatistics and supervision and examination of postgraduate research.

Target Group: Emerging Researchers, Postdoctoral Fellows and M & D Candidates

Background: This workshop will provide attendees with the necessary knowledge to conceptualise, design and implement quantitative design studies.

By the end of the workshop, attendees should be able to:

Identify a research problem together with an appropriate quantitative design
Describe the different types of quantitative research designs
Understand the importance of linking research objectives to quantitative research designs
Understand the effect of research designs on study implementation
Describe the relationship between research design and statistical analysis
Describe the association between quantitative design and data collection
Understand the association between quantitative design and sampling
Identify appropriate endpoints in line with a project’s quantitative design
Determine a sample size that is appropriate to a quantitative design