Avoiding Duplicate and Weak Ideas
Core summary
Not all research ideas are worth pursuing. This lesson identifies eight red flags that signal a dead-end question, plus two quick tests that can save you from wasting months on a weak idea.
Detailed explanation
Detailed explanation
Eight red flags for weak research ideas: 1. Already answered: A high-quality SR or large RCT has definitively answered the question. 2. Unfalsifiable: The question cannot be disproven. 3. Too obvious: The answer is already known without a study. 4. Purely descriptive with no implication: Unless it leads to an actionable question. 5. Too broad: Question encompasses too many variables. 6. No clinical or public health impact: Would the result change anything? 7. Unethical to test: Cannot ethically randomize to a harmful arm. 8. Dependent on technology or data you cannot access. Two quick tests: So What test: If you answer your question, so what? What changes? Who Cares test: Name three groups who would use your results. If you cannot, the question lacks relevance.
Clinical example
Resident idea: Prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in our hospital. Red flags: purely descriptive, likely already known. Better: Does vitamin D supplementation in deficient ICU patients reduce length of stay?
Research example
Ioannidis (2016) argued in Why Most Clinical Research Is Not Useful that research waste often stems from asking irrelevant, non-novel, or infeasible questions.
Knowledge check
Q1. Which research idea has the MOST red flags?
Q2. The Who Cares test asks you to:
Q3. A study with negative results (showing no effect) is always considered research waste.