Archive

Welcome to the archives. These articles represent many different seasons of my career. You’ll find posts written during my doctoral studies, years of marketing consulting, entrepreneurial experiments, and the occasional reflection on whatever happened to be capturing my attention at the time.

Blogging looked very different when many of these posts were published. Rather than removing them or fixing broken links from now defunct themes, I’ve chosen to preserve them as a snapshot of where I was, what I was learning, and how my thinking has evolved over the years.

Some ideas have stood the test of time. Others reflect the questions I was wrestling with at that particular moment. Either way, they tell part of the story.

What is Generalizability (and Why Should I Care)

by | Mar 15, 2020 | Uncategorized

Research Should be Generalizable

When I report on papers and articles that I have read keep in mind that we will always want to apply the test of generalizability.  Often studies are performed in one location or in a small area with a relatively small number of people.  Perhaps in a hospital in Maryland that employs 200 nurses.

Findings that are generalizable are quite powerful, and can provide true change in your organization.

Let’s say the study finds that nurses who work 8-hour shifts make fewer errors than nurses who work 12-hour shifts.  For the research to be generalizable to the entire population of hospital nurses additional studies would have to show the same results in hospitals in Florida, New York, California, Prague, Milan, etc. Look for another post where I discuss the powerful facet of transferrability.