Critical Thinking in Exercise Science

Differentiate between different sources of information

 

 

Understand basic research and study designs to critically evaluate information

 

 

 

Be able to critically evaluate research within the health and fitness industry

 

 

Health literacy

  • The skills to enable access, understanding and use of information for health

  • Critical thinking in applied sciences: many "truths" in exercise science may only be true in specific contexts or may be preliminary findings and need further study

    • Research that involves humans is difficult

 

Sources of information

  • Popular

    • Non-expert, magazine/newspaper

    • General audience

    • Language is easy to read

    • Short 1-2 pages

  • Expert or Trade (CSEP and ACSP)

    • Experts in a field/subject

    • Targets members of an organization or industry

    • Trade-specific terminology,

    • Short or medium (4-5)

    • Few advertisements

  • Scholarly/Peer-reviewd

    • By scholars, Professors, experts *researchers)

    • Other researches/academics

    • Formal, research language, scientific terminology, requires higher level of knowledge

    • Very lengthy

    • No ad

    • Always sources cited

 

Evidence Pyramid

  • Increase in quality at top of the period therefore we can trust it more

 

  • Opinion (bottom)

    • Blogs, YouTube, magazines, Netflix

    • Very accesible

    • Confirmation bias: belief that something is ture because you want it to be. Seen a lot in ioinion

 

  • Expert opinion (first layer)

    • Anecdotal evidence not true evidence

      • May or may not be evidence

    • Logical fallacies

      • An argument that may sound convincing or true but in reality is flawed

        • Contains errors in the reasoning that undermine the logic of an argument

        • Unsupport evidence

 

  • Case series and Reports and Single subject experiments (second layer)

    • Complete a summery of a single individual that is receiving treatment

    • Which much n=1

    • Case Report

      • Detailed report of the diagnosis, treatment, response to treatment and follow-up after traetment of an indivdual patient

        • Case series: a group of case reports involving patients who were given similar treatment

    • Single-subject experiments

      • You design an exercise regime for yourself and you can measure fitness parameters before and after the program

        • You can only claim the program is working for you, can't claim it won't work for someone else

        • Further, achieving yoru goals doesn't necessarily mean you've designed or are following the absolute optimal program

 

Observation/Descriptive Studies

  • Aims to accurately and systematically describe a population, situation or observed phenomenon

    • Observe if a correlation exists between 2 or more variables

    • Answer that what, where, when and how but not why

    • Correlation doesn't equal causation

 

Cross-sectional studies

  • Survey a population for the prevalence of a disease or condition

    • present

Longitudinal studies

  • Follow participants over long periods of time

Retrospective studies

  • Compare groups of people who have a particular disease or condition

    • Looking back

 

Experimental science

  • Has hypothesis

  • Experimentation

    • Independent variable is manipulated or altered

    • Dependent variable response to independent variable

  • Groups

    • Experimental group (treatment group) has the independent variable changed

    • Control group has the independent variable that doesn't change

 

Example

Hypothesis: running 15 mins a day for 2 weeks can increase your cardiorespiratory fitness

Independent: the 15 mins of running a day

Dependent: VO2 max

 

Measure all participants VO2 max

Divide into groups

Experimental group: runs for 15mins/day for 2 weeks

Control group: does not run for 2 weeks

 

After 2 weeks, VO2 max is measured again

 

Replication

  • If a result supports a hypothesis, it must be replicated to ensure the observation was not a change or "one-off" event

Working model

  • When data supports a hypothesis after multiple experiments

Scientific Theory

  • When a working model has substantial evidence form multiple investigators

 

Randomized Controlled Trials (Gold Standard)

  • Participants are randomly allocated to the experimental or control group

    • Removes bias'

  • The analysis is focused on estimating the size of the differences in outcomes between both groups

  • Difficult and expensive

    • Reason why its not the default

 

Variability of Human Experiments

  • Variability

    • There is a wide genetic and environmental variability between humans

      • Exercise habits (type, effort, commitment), diet, sleep, genomes, social interactions, environments

    • Making "truths" difficult to determine under different circumstances

  • Mitigate by

    • Having a large sample size

    • A crossover studies

 

Crossover studies

  • each participants gets the experimental treatment and then "crosses over" to also be in the control group

  • A wash out period occurs

  • Then the groups switch

  • Individual acts as their own control, enabling researchers to see the effect of the drug in each participants rather than between two groups which helps manage variability between participants

 

Psychological Factors

  • Placebo effect

    • If someone receives a pill and tell them it will alleviate some problem, that beneficial effect may be observed even if the pill only contains sugar or an inert substance

      • 30 percent of people will see a physiological change from a sugar pill

  • To limit the effect we have a blind study

    • Participants don't know if they took the treatment or the placebo

    • Participants are randomly assigned

    • Double-blind study researches are also blinded until after the experiment to reduce bias

      • Rare because difficult and expensive to perform

 

Systematic Reviews

  • Gold standard

  • Compilations of all relevant research articles

  • Identifies and synthesizes all high-quality research evidence relevant

  • Meta-analysis

    • Combines all the data form a group of similar studies and uses statistical techniques to extract readings or findings from the combined data

 

Scientific Method

  • Empirical

    • Objective

    • We report the observed changes

    • Control the variables

    • Verifiable in peer review

  • Rational

    • Follow logic and known principles/facts

    • Can't go against physics

  • Testable

    • Testable in nature

    • Is repeatable

    • Connected to empirical

  • Parsimonious

    • Explained with at least the fewest number of causes

  • General

    • Results will also agree with other general populations

  • Rigorously evaluated

    • Expert is blinded and will agree or disagree with results

  • Tentative

    • Present results but it can also change in the future

    • Atleast 5% of what we learn is wrong