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.
Planning your research
Ou guidance on starting research projects, which looks at the whole planning process from prioritising possible research ideas to setting aims and objectives, and e-learning on planning research projects, which helps ensure your research project goes smoothly.
Before you start to produce a project plan, use the Theory of Change process to help you clarify more specifically what you’ll be focusing on. See our theory of change template to work out how your research project can make a difference to people’s experiences of health and social care.
When planning your research, thinking about samples, bias, ethics, and risk is essential.
Ourguidance on bias and samples explains the different types of bias you should consider and issues you need to think about to get a good sample for your project. 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.
If you are offering incentives to take part in research, you might also want to take a look at our guidance on minimising fraudulent research participation. It outlines strategies for minimising fraudulent research participation and identifying suspicious or fraudulent research data in surveys, interviews and focus groups.
We have a comprehensive project planning document and e-learning on planning research projects.
Making sure your research or engagement project is inclusive
In addition to guidance and an e-learning course on collecting and using demographic data, we have a range of resources dedicated to helping you listen to people from specific groups. We have overall guidance, based on best practice from the Healthwatch network.
We also have models of best practice from the network on how to work with particular groups:
- people with learning disabilities,
- people experiencing homelessness,
- refugees and asylum seekers,
- young people
- People with dementia
We also have advice on:
- Working with community researchers to achieve change for people
- co-producing with people from seldom heard groups.
- Working with partners to create a stronger voice for residents
Which research methods to use
If you’re not sure which research method to use for your project, we have a handy interactive tool to help you work out what the best methods are for the topic you want to explore and your resources.
Quantitative research methods
We have overall guidance on quantitative research.
There is more detailed 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 question bank, which contains various template questions for you.
An e-learning course will take you through the basics of designing a survey.
If you’re new to Smart Survey, don’t forget to check out the guidance showing you how to get started.
We also have information and guidance on carrying out mystery shopping.
Qualitative research methods
We have some introductory guidance on qualitative research and more detailed guidance on different qualitative research methods, including:
- Semi-structured interviews
- Enter and views
- Focus groups, a qualitative research method that brings people together to discuss experiences, opinions, and ideas on a specific topic. Unlike one-to-one interviews, focus groups can capture a broad range of perspectives and the dynamic between participants, making them particularly useful for understanding many sides to an issue as well as how people respond to differing opinions.
- Deliberative engagement, a research method that not only captures rich data about people’s experiences and opinions, but also builds understanding and consensus.
Data collection and storage
To help ensure that you comply with legal regulations around data collection, we have guidance and e-learning about the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This includes a template for telling people on the phone or face to face how you’ll use their data and guidance on how to word 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 guidance on quantitative data analysis 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.
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 process of planning what to write, how to present your findings and recommendations and how to finalise your report.
You might also find our e-learning course on how to write like Healthwatch helpful.
We have targeted guidance on developing effective recommendations to help ensure that your report has impact and helps to achieve change.
Measuring the impact of your project
We have an impact tracker which you can use to plan follow-up activity, keep track of progress toward achieving anticipated outcomes, and record your impact.
Training, events, and research clinics
The research team run training and events throughout the year on different topics, including practical sessions on research methods and data analysis.
You could also request an informal research clinic with the Healthwatch England Team. These clinics are a chance to sit down with one of us for an hour and discuss any questions about your research project. People have spoken to us to refine their surveys, talk through the design of their study, and discuss data analysis and presentation.
Please complete our form and someone from the Research Team will be in touch with you to arrange a suitable time to meet -https://network.healthwatch.co.uk/research_clinic_sign_up.