On the contrary, using excessive samples will lead to unnecessary wastage of resources, time, and efforts without any added benefits. Studies conducted using an insufficient sample size may produce erroneous results and lead to evidence that has no relevance in real situations. Otherwise, this incompetency is going to haunt you for a lifetime.Ĭonducting research by calculated sample size helps to produce reliability and generalizability of the study results. As we all agree that the thesis is probably the first research work taken up by a majority of medical doctors (barring a few who do some at the undergraduate level) hence, the basis of taking decisions regarding sample size should be clear. At the postgraduate level, this has been an ignored concept, both by the students, their supervisors as well as the evaluators. There are a few prerequisite questions, which need to be answered and only based on that a figure can be arrived at. The process of arriving at the appropriate sample size is scientific. ![]() So, sit down and answer a few of the questions.” And repeatedly over the years, our answer has been – ”I don’t have a magic wand to generate a figure. Some of them land up to the “Community Medicine” department to inquire the magic number they require to satisfy the requirements of their plan. One day you would find them running to find out the number of samples to be included in the research work. Being on the other side of the table today, we can really understand the pitiful status of residents who join in 1 st year and find out that they need to do research work.Īlthough this whole scenario is a monstrous task, there is one very common problem encountered by almost all the students. As a student, it would take many more weeks of struggle to find out what a thesis meant. First month into joining as a postgraduate at the medical college and “Submit your thesis plan within a week,” ordered the guide – quite a common scenario. ![]() Research work in the life of a majority of medical students starts at the postgraduate level with the thesis work.
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