A proposal for judging the trustworthiness of research findings

Abstract

This paper offers a procedure for, and a description of the elements \ninvolved in judging how trustworthy a research finding is. The idea is \nof value to the users of research evidence and to researchers \nthemselves when creating a synthesis of existing evidence (i.e. in a \nliterature review. The focus here is on active designs to address causal \nresearch questions, but the ideas can easily be extended to other types \nof research. Other than design, the elements suggested are sample \nsize and quality, data quality, fidelity of intervention, and threats to \nvalidity. These are combined in a kind of ‘sieve’ to produce a \njudgement-based star-rating for the believability of a piece of research. \nTrustworthiness of research findings is currently an area with too little \nfocus for the development of new researchers.

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