Helping you with your research project

We have lots of guidance and support to make your job quicker and easier, from planning through to analysis and publishing your findings.

Alongside the research team’s support, we have a range of resources designed to help you carry out research. These resources are part of the core skills framework, which staff can use to brush up on any skills they need for their current role at Healthwatch.

What does this guide cover?

This guide covers all aspects of planning, carrying out and writing up a research project, including:

• Learning the basics
• Planning your research
• Using specific research methods
• Data collection and storage
• Data analysis
• Inclusive research
• Presenting your findings

New to research?

We have introductory guidance on qualitative research and quantitative research to help you get to grips with the basics of both approaches. These documents will help you to understand the differences between quantitative and qualitative approaches and when each approach is appropriate. Both resources introduce you to concepts and ideas that our other resources will build on.

You can also learn about the research process and what carrying out a piece of research from start to finish will look like. This guidance also contains a Gantt chart template that you can use to help you plan your research in the future.

Planning your research

There is also guidance on starting research projects, which looks at setting aims and objectives, and e-learning on planning research projects, which helps ensure your research project goes smoothly.

When planning your research, thinking about bias, ethics, and risk is essential.

Our guidance on bias introduces different types of bias you should consider. Our guidance on ethics and risk includes considerations about data protection and security, the wellbeing of participants, and the risk to Healthwatch, including risks to those carrying out the research.

If you plan on working in partnership with another organisation, we have guidance to help you consider how this could impact your work. This includes how to maintain independence and integrity, how to create a conflict-of-interest policy and considerations about intellectual property rights.  

Using specific research methods

To help you, we have different guidance on survey research, including guidance on survey development and e-learning on survey design, which cover tips and best practices for survey research. Alongside our guidance on survey development, you can use the guidance on writing your own survey questions and a question bank, which contains various template questions for you.

To make things easier for you, there is also a template cost of living survey, which you can use to collect information about the impact of the cost of living on people’s health and wellbeing.

If you’re new to Smart Survey, don’t forget to check out the guidance showing you how to get started.

We have information and guidance on carrying out mystery shopping and Enter and Views, too.  

Data collection and storage

The guidance on getting the right sample introduces you to different sampling methods and provides examples of projects to outline when each sampling approach could be appropriate.

There’s guidance on how to collect demographics and use demographic data and an e-learning course on demographics. These resources cover why it’s essential that we collect demographic data, which questions you should ask, when it’s best to ask demographic questions and tips to support you in asking for demographic information.

We also have guidance on partnering with local GPs to contact patients via text message.

To help ensure that you comply with legal regulations around data collection, we have e-learning about the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and guidance wording consent. 

Data analysis

The guidance on analysing qualitative data takes you through why it’s important to analyse qualitative data, how to prepare your data for analysis and the process for coding your data. This helps you easily identify, explore and explain key themes to present your findings.  

Our introductory guidance on quantitative research highlights methods of descriptive and comparative analyses that you can use to make sense of the data you’ve collected. This includes top tips for analysing and visualising your data. 

We also have a five-part e-learning course on using Excel. In addition to introducing Excel, these courses also show you how to carry out descriptive and comparative quantitative data analyses, covering data organisation and transformation; visualising data using charts and tables; pivot tables; using formulas; and aggregating data.

If you are using Smart Survey, take a look at the guidance on using the analysis tools it provides, which can let you look at both text and numerical responses, break your data into subgroups, and create charts.

Making sure your research is inclusive

In addition to the resources on using demographic data, we have a range of resources dedicated to helping you listen to people from specific groups. This includes:

• People with learning disabilities
• People experiencing homelessness
• Refugees and asylum seekers
• Young people

We also have advice on:

• Working closely with local communities
• Working with seldom heard groups
• Co-producing with people from seldom heard groups

Presenting your findings

To make things easier when it comes to writing your report check out the guidance on how to write up your research and engagement findings. This resource takes you through the four areas your report needs to cover, how to present your findings and recommendations and how to finalise your report. We have targeted guidance on developing effective recommendations to help ensure that your report has impact and helps to achieve change.

We also have guidance on quality assurance, so you can ensure that you’re confident in the quality of your work before making it available to the public or sharing it with stakeholders.