Faculty of Physical Therapy ‫كلية العالج الطبيعي‬

Department of biomechanics

Scientific Writing (G48120)

Research Article on How to Write A Scientific

Research Paper
By

Ahmed Abo zaid Mohamed Elsayed

‫احمد ابوزيد محمد السيد‬

ID:21473

LEVEL: 8

Presented to

Dr/Dalia Galal

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Abstract

The aim of this research was to develop evaluation instruments for scientific writing
instruction with a constructivism approach. In order to achieve the research objectives, the
combined models of development, 4D and RDR were used. The design of this research that
included four stages, namely the preliminary study, define, design, and development. The
research data were quantitative and qualitative. Data analysis techniques were the domain
technique and t test statistical. Based on the results, the obtained development product in the
form of the evaluation of the instruction of writing scientific papers were valid and reliable.
The development product consisted of four types of evaluation devices, the assessment
rubrics, portfolios, observation sheets, and learning journal. Based on the results of the four
development products, the effectiveness test was valid and reliable so that it can be used to
conduct evaluation of learning to write scientific papers with constructivism approach, both
for the evaluation of the process and the evaluation of the learning outcomes. The result of
this development research implies that the product of this development research was valid
and reliable, and feasible and reliable for using in scientific writing instruction because
haved been through a lengthy development process and systematically.

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Introduction

The medical profession is a journey that one embarks on, commencing in the early years
as an undergraduate student, and only terminates with one's passing away. Continuous
medical training and keeping up-to-date is a crucial expedient for the medical profession. In
the early 2000's, there was a global shift from paper-based to digital online resources. The
revolutionarily change with a plethora of online resources inevitability affected medical
training, with enhanced digital learning and teaching. Online education emerged, and this is
nowadays a common modality that permits learning flexibility, while facilitating
collaboration between faculties, universities and students. The old methods of borrowing or
buying medical books and languishing in the library to browse through papers are not
unsustainable. There are a multitude of online resources that can be utilized for medical
training. The following sections will provide a summarized guide to these resources (4).

By adhering to the important role of evaluation in the learning process, including the
teaching of writing scientific composition, the instrument used to perform the evaluation
process should be developed systematically and well-planned in order to accurately measure
what should be measured. The instrument resulting from the development is called an
evaluation instrument of development product. The evaluation instrument of development
product is a valid and reliable instrument to be used because it has been through a series of
tests, namely the practitioner test, expert test, a small group test, and la rge group test (16)

Pertaining to the issue that learning to write scientific compositions has an important role
for the smoothness and completion of the student study in higher education, the evaluation
instruments need to be developed. It was based on the results of preliminary studies that the
existing evaluation instruments were still based on the traditional approach, lacking support
in the implementation process and the achievement of learning outcomes, not being able to
increase students’ physical and psychological activity, and only measured the knowledge and
skills of the students in writing scientific papers( 16)

The evaluation instrument developed for writing scientific composition is oriented or

based on a constructivism approach in line with the approach used in the learning process.
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The constructivism evaluation instrument is capable of stimulating students' learning by
constructing the knowledge and skills learned by the students themselves through intensive
interaction with the material, study groups, communities and the surrounding environment.
There are four types of evaluation instruments developed in this study, they are the
assessment rubrics, portfolios, observation sheets, and learning journal (17)

Methods

In most journals the ‘‘Methods’’ section is designated as ‘‘Materials and Methods’’ or

‘‘Participants and Methods’’ emphasizing the two main areas that should be addressed. First,
‘‘Materials’’ refers to what was observed (e.g.: humans, animals, tissues, cells, etc.) and the
interventions (e.g.: drugs, devices, etc.) and instruments (e.g.: measurement technologies)
used in the study. Second, ‘‘Methods’’ refers to how subjects or objects were selected,
manipulated or observed to answer the research question, how measurements were
performed and how the data were analyzed. The writing of the Methods section should be
clear and orderly to avoid confusion and ambiguity. The methods section should ideally be
structured in a set of subsections describing its main content. A possible structure is
proposed along this paper including the following subsections: 1. Study design; 2. Selection
of participants — selection criteria and selection methods; 3. Data collection — variables,
methods and instruments and 4. Data analysis. Each one of these subsections could have
additional subheadings as appropriate. It should be stressed that the proposal that follows is
deemed to be broad and general in scope, and should always be completed with some other
specific indications in the context of the particular type of study reported. To master the
writing of the methods section it is important (1) to look at many other examples of methods
sections in articles with similar scopes and aims as ours and (2) to use some of the many
reporting guidelines that are available for the most common study types16,17 (e.g.:
CONSORT for clinical trials18; STROBE for observational studies19; STARD for
diagnostic research20; PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analysis21; etc.). The
writing of Methods section should be direct, precise and in the past tense. Complex sentence
structures should be avoided, as well as descriptions of unimportant aspects or too much
details. In general, the description of procedures and measurements should be organized

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chronologically; and, in each subsection, content should be organized from the most to the
least important. (15)

evaluation instruments

The first type of evaluation instrument was used to measure/assess the level of
participation, creativity, cooperation, responsibility, and mental involvement (emotional
intelligence, enthusiasm, interest) of students in the learning process. The first evaluation
instruments were also used to evaluate the performance of the lecturers during the learning
process. The evaluation of the lecturers was conducted on the aspects of their involvement in
helping, assisting, facilitating, motivating, and directing students to achieve learning goals.

The second type of evaluation instrument was used to measure/assess students’ learning
outcomes in the form of the final task of the learning process. The final task of the process of
learning to compose scientific piece of writing was in the form of papers. The utilization of
both types of the evaluation instruments that can encourage the increased interaction and the
final process of learning to write scientific papers of the students. The utilization of the first
type of the evaluation instruments can increase the intensity and quality of the students’
work, their level of participation, creativity, cooperation, responsibility, involvement,
psychological, ie, emotion, intelligence, enthusiasm, talents, and interests in the learning
process. the utilization of the second type of the evaluation instruments is to improve the
quality of the work in the form of student papers (2)

also suggests the use of instruments of evaluation process and evaluation of learning
outcomes to improve the achievement of students. Thus, the estuary is the increasing in the
students’ scientific work writing skills. This development product of evaluation instruments
is used to motivate and improve learning outcomes of students in writing scientific papers.
As stated up front that the evaluation instrument of learning process and results can be used
to improve student achievement, especially the learning process evaluation instrument
designed according to students' interests. The portfolio evaluation instrument, for example
can be used to motivate student learning by collecting artifacts or the performance of

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students as many as possible into the portfolio document to complete learning tasks Likewise
is applied for valuation instrument types of observation sheet and learning journal.

The evaluation instrument of the development products can also be used as a guide for the
learning process to write scientific papers. The process of learning to write scientific papers
needs to be guided or needs specific guidelines to facilitate the students so that their skills in
writing scientific papers continue to rise. That is, the steps to write scientific papers by the
students are evaluated so that it can run properly in accordance with the procedure. The
evaluation instrument of the development product is feasible to use as a guide for students in
writing scientific papers. These four types of the evaluation instrument of the development
product can be used to guide students in writing scientific papers step by step. The portfolio
evaluation instrument type, for example, is in the form of document collection of all the
results of students’ performance done step by step in writing scientific papers.

When all the steps have been completed and all the tasks are collected in the portfolio file,
the student has completed all the stages in writing scientific papers. Similar to the portfolio,
the evaluation instrument type of assessment rubric contains a number of indicators that can
lead the students in writing scientific papers properly. In the evaluation instrument type of
the observation sheet, there are components of student activity and lecturer activity in the
learning process that need to be evaluated. The evaluation instrument type of observation
sheet is used to record all activities in the forms of student participation, both physical and
mental activity. The observation sheet is also used to record all activities of the lecturers
during the learning process.

It is expected that based on the results of the recording the complete implementation of the
learning process can be identified in order to see the strengths and weaknesses that might
arise. The result of recorded learning process is one of the reflection materials to improve the
implementation of the learning process at the subsequent meetings. On the other hand, the
evaluation instrument type of the learning journal is a form of reflection of the
implementation of the learning process of each meeting and at the end of the semester. The
learning journal is intended to trace the entire process of the learning to see the strength and
weaknesses (13)

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 Scholarly online resources and courses

It is common practice for universities to provide online education, courses and resources
for their students and academics, through the use of online platforms. This modality has
become popular through its ability to connect students to academics and peers, and the
course content by means of a flexible and asynchronous environment. Infact, both the
academic staff and the students benefit from the “anytime and anywhere” approach to
learning and working. This permits the student to acquire one of the 21st century skills,
where the student needs to display self-reliance and learn content without the face-to-face
instructions provided in the traditional classroom, as well as the need to keep track with
weekly assignments through the use of virtual platforms (14)

These scholarly online courses exhibit a revolutionary approach to the increasing

demanding era of continuing medical education (CME) and continuous professional
development (CPD) faced by medical professionals. It may be challenging for medical
professionals to attain their medical training while having a multitude of commitments which
prohibit them from attending conferences, courses or engaging in on-site postgraduate
education. Nowadays, these challenges have been attenuated through online CME and CPD
courses, as well as distance learning education. Distance learning modules, diplomas,
masters and doctoral studies (PhD) are being offered by a number of Universities through
online learning. Some of these courses are solely online and some adopt a blended format,
where lectures and coursework are provided virtually, but exams and sometimes workshops
are supplemented by face-to-face formats. Such online courses utilize a virtual learning
environment (VLE) where coursework, presentations and media are distributed to the
students by academics. Some universities (e.g. University of Malta and University of York)
also use this VLE system as a means of providing coursework for those attending traditional
classroom courses. Online learning has been criticized for the dissociative process and
disconnect between the academic and the students. However, this has been overcome with
the emergence of ‘connectivisim’, which is a principle developed by Siemens, where
individual ideas, opinions, perspective diversity, learning, formulation of relationships and
interdisciplinary connections are considered together through daily technology (6)

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 These daily technologies include Wikis, Facebook, YouTube etc. Furthermore, as part of
online courses, discussion forums and real-time video conferencing have also been
developed. Discussion forums are used for networking and for the creation of interactions
between students and their peers, as well between students and the academics.

PubMed

The first port of call for most of those performing research is invariably PubMed, which
is a free service provided by the United States National Library of Medicine. PubMed
provides free access to the MEDLINE database as well as links to full-text articles found in
PubMed Central or at a publisher's website. PubMed Central (PMC) is a free archive of life
sciences and biomedical journal literature, which is managed by the National Library of
Medicine's National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). A number of journals
index their articles on PMC. In return PMC provides permanent storage and access to all of
its contents. (19)

PubMed facilitates advanced searching, and also offers clinical queries search filters and
special queries pages. The search features enable the user to customize the search by Medical
Subject Headings (MeSH) terms, author names, title words, text words or phrases and
journal names. Journals featured on MEDLINE® through PubMed database would have
undergone thorough review and scoring system and only journals contributing high scientific
quality papers manage to become indexed in this database. Therefore, articles and journals
retrieved through PubMed database can be considered reliable and can be cited confidently
(1)

Google scholar

Google scholar is a simple search engine that uses the same search function as Google but
accesses peer-reviewed papers, theses, abstracts, books and articles extracted from an

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academic's publishers' sites, universities, professional societies, preprint repositories and
other organisations. Google Scholar has also been reported to be able to access gray
literature. Google scholar is an easy tool due to our familiarity with Google [19]. However,
compared with PubMed there are a number of shortcomings including lack of advanced
search features and lack of controlled vocabulary, among others. It has been documented that
when researching for health-related topics, such as patient care information, clinical trials
and literature review one should not solely consider the Google Scholar database (7)

on-line resources

The World Wide Web hosts a plethora of online resources that contribute to medical
training for students and professionals alike. There are also various websites that provide
medical information to the general public. Unfortunately, the many online health resources
available may not always present accurate information, or the information provided may be
misleading, so it is crucial that sources are scrutinized and only trustworthy resources are
utilized. It is suggested that one follows the “Who? What?; When?; Where? and Why?” five-
question approach when visiting a health-related online resource in order toestablish its
medical validity. Establishing the “Who?” runs the website and whether the source is
trustworthy, is the first step. If the source is from a well renowned institution or organization
or governmental department, then data can be trusted. Assessing the “What?” the source is
claiming and whether it seems to be too good to be true, is the next step to perform, followed
by “When” was the information posted. With the continuous evolution of medical techniques
and findings, old posts may no longer be valid; therefore, it is important that medical sources
that one intends to utilize are up-to-date. The next observation should be focused on the
“Where?” the information originated from. Online data based on scientific research with
links to the published articles offers sound knowledge as compared to data without a known
source. Lastly it is wise to establish the “Why?” the online resource exists. If the resource is
part of an institution or organization of online resources or outreach, then the objective for

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the data availability is for learning purposes and not for alternative motive/s, and can
therefore be trusted (8)

Literature review

A number of medical journals (example: BMJ, The Lancet and New England Journal of
Medicine) provide mobile apps to access articles on mobile devices although the majority of
these apps do not offer free access. There are a number of medical literature search apps that
a medical profession can access, among which are PubMed on Tap, PubSearch, MEDLINE
Database on Tap and Medscape apps (9)

Conclusion

The World Wide Web era has revolutionized medical training with a shift from paper
based and library to an online and virtual learning epoch. The myriad online resources enable
the medical professional to continue his/her training and education with convenience, and
permits access to up-to-date resources at point-of-care. Social networks have enhanced
communication and the sharing of data between groups of professionals. The development of
smartphones has augmented communication between professionals as well as accessibility to
medical literature, medical news and clinical skills resources at a touch of a button.

The methods section is the most important part of a scientific paper because it provides
the crucial information that allows the reader to judge the validity of the results and
conclusions of the study reported. Therefore, in this section, the authors should provide a
clear and precise description of how the study was performed and the rationale for the
methodological choices and characteristics of the study design. A clear and precise account
of how a study was performed, and the rationale for specific study methods are the crucial
aspects of scientific writing. A proposal for the structure and content of the methods has been
presented and explored giving a general guidance for the writing and assessment of the
quality of this section and of the study reported. We hope that somehow this paper may
comprise a useful tool for authors, reviewers and readers of scientific papers.
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