Limitations (and advantages) of a small scale inquiry....

It was an important learning discovery during the planning for my project to look at the limitations the inquiry would have as a small scale inquiry - as much as I would have liked to take on a large number of participants to get a larger amount of exploratory sample data, this would be impractical. It led me to reflect that the whole point of this degree is work based learning - we are working whilst learning, and we do not have the advantages of those who have their whole weeks dedicated to their research projects. So practically I need to do something that will not allow for any dips in my professional performance but instead will only enhance it. Therefore its really useful that my inquiry will be centered around my own work and won't be something I necessarily need to start from scratch to use in the project.

However whilst we do not have as much time dedicated solely to our research project, we do have the advantage of working already in our field of choice and having that practical experience in our field of study. I also have the opportunities to talk to other professionals every day and to put into motion practically everything I learn as soon as possible - relating back to an idea discussed in module 1 and 2, that a practitioner should be constantly evolving.


Even large scale inquiry's using representative data have their disadvantages. Recently in the papers an article arose about a study that showed people who drank one diet drink a day had an increased risk of Alzheimer's and Stroke -https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/20/stroke-and-dementia-risk-linked-to-low-sugar-drinks-study-finds. 

I took the article to my SIG at work and we discussed the idea that although the study did show that the people who drank a diet drink seemed to have an increased risk of stroke and dementia, the study itself was weak . It had a high number of participants, but there was no control over the participants apart from the diet drink. They did not take into consideration family medical history, pre-existing medical conditions, if the participant led a sedentary lifestyle or exercised regularly, or if the rest of the participants diet was healthy. 

Therefore the study, as the NHS mentions here http://www.nhs.uk/news/2017/04April/Pages/Reported-link-between-diet-drinks-and-dementia-and-stroke-is-weak.aspx, was weak and showed no real link, although several thousand people took part. This really put into perspective for me how difficult it is to produce an inquiry which truly gives a measure of something on a nation-wide scale, and I now see the importance of the inquiry being relevant to my own personal practice as this inquiry could be used on an individual basis for another practitioner to look at their own learning, and it doesn't matter that its a different set of people and they are not in a control group, because it is only the practitioner who is really being used as an inquiry tool. 

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