Clinical biomechanical research proposal

• Develop a suitable biomechanicalresearch question.
• Justify the question by a critical overview of the literature, identifying the evidence gap.
• Present an operationalised hypothesis i.e. one that has enough detail to be testable.
• Describe and justify the proposed research design, e.g. RCT or observational study.
• Select a biomechanical outcome measure to test the hypothesis.
• Justify outcome measure selection using the eight criteria for patient based measures.
• appropriateness, reliability, validity, responsiveness, precision, interpretability, acceptability and feasibility
• For more information see http://phi.uhce.ox.ac.uk/inst_selcrit.php
• Data collection methodology should be presented in concise detail [including participant selection and recruitment as well as a detailed protocol which is replicable].
• Calculate the sample size required to test the hypothesis to a meaningful level of clinical or sports biomechanics change .i.e. a meaningful clinical or sports biomechanical change.

Breakdown of marks

1. A suitable research question (10 marks)
2. A rationale for the importance of answering that research question (20 marks)
3. A hypothesis to answer the research question (5 Marks)
4. The outcome measure to be used in the hypothesis and the methodology by which it would be collected (15 marks)
5. Justification of the outcome measure as suitable to address the research hypothesisin terms of appropriateness, reliability, validity, responsiveness, precision, interpretability, acceptability and feasibility. (40 marks)
6. A sample size calculation with an alpha of 0.05 and a power to detect of 80%. You should justify your selection of a meaningful difference and your estimate of the variance in the data (10 marks)