Final Blog

I am sad to say that this is our last week of blogging in PR Research.  Over the semester I have learned a great amount on what public research really is, and why it is so important in the industry.  I have discussed what I have learned in research class and have been able to tie in the connection of the field of medicine.  Our final post is pertaining to discussing two different classmate's blogs and what we found interesting about them.

The first blog I found interesting was Kevin's blog on survey research in the supplement industry.  Not only did I find his blog interesting and informative but I was able to relate to what he had to say on a personal level.  Having some knowledge in the supplement industry I too also agree that survey research is a very efficient, inexpensive, and productive way to get statistical quantitative results very fast.  Also, since the consumer is the one taking the survey and giving his/her feedback, it becomes very beneficial to the company manufacturing the supplement when researching what can be changed or improved in the product to benefit the consumer.

The second blog that interested me was Andrew's blog on experimental research being conducted on the difference between aluminum and wooden bats.  Like Andrew said, I agree that it is ridiculous to allow college level players to use aluminum bats, especially the more powerful hitters that are eventually going to be drafted in the majors.  In the study he talks about, the aluminum bats are dominating the market and I think there should be a line drawn at a certain level when it comes to putting the players, pitcher especially, at such a high risk of getting hurt.

medicine and experiments

In the past week, the final research method we studied was experimental research.  We learned that when conducting experimental research, the researcher has to have and experimental group and a control group.  Usually within the experiment, the experimental and control group have all the same variables expect one difference, and that depends on what the researcher is trying to test in their study.  When the participants do not know what is being tested and the researcher does, this is called a blind study.  However, when neither the researcher or the participants know what is actually being tested, this is called a double blind study.


Experimental research is extremely popular in the medical field.  The United States especially is known for our many scientific breakthroughs in medicine.  Why do you think this is?  In the United states over 50% of people are on a prescription drug, and when a person gets sick in our country, what do they do?  They pop a pill and expect to feel healthy again.  Well this would not be possible if experimentation did not occur in the medical field.  The most popular experiment that takes place in the medical field is when it comes time to testing a new drug.  A blind study is usually conducted where one group receives the new medicine and does not know, and the other group receives the same pill, however that is the control group, and their pill is diluted with water or sugar instead.  This is done simply to test the different results that occur between the experimental group and the control group and discover if the actual new medicine works, and what its side effects are, if any at all.  


Then we ask ourselves, is conducting experiments a humans with medical drugs that have not been tested before even ethical?  The risks and dangers that come along with experiments done for medical benefit are extremely high.  The article I found does a great job debating between the ethics of medical experimentation and all the new cures that have been found because of it.

Survey Research

Over the past week our PR Research class has discussed one of the most used research method called survey research.  Survey research is both very popular in the professional setting, as well as the academic setting.  Until we discussed the different scholarly uses of the academic approach of using a survey I was not aware of how often it is used in academia.  Surveys are great when it comes to the inexpensiveness and quick response they get.  Also, the fact that surveys are quantitative it is much easier for the researcher to compare numbers statistically rather than measuring the behaviors of people.


Within the medical field, the Center for Survey Research affiliated with University of Massachusetts Boston has been conducting several different experiments using survey research.  They divided the survey subjects into two different areas of focus.  The first experiment was measuring whether the studying of certain treatments on the patients for purposes of developing new cures was ethical or not.  The second experiment was how medical ethics studies focus on the different ways academic health centers discover and manage conflicts of interest in their conduct of medical research. 


Big Public Relations sites such as PR Newswire even includes information on medicine and surveys.  A featured article I found on their site was about the top 10 medical innovations suspected to be introduced in 2011 and the research was conducted through surveys. Overall survey research is a very valuable method of research to researchers especially when it comes to the inexpensiveness, quickness of results, and the comparability of the end statistics.