Formative Research Team
Children's Mercy Kansas City
Our Mission: To promote the use of rigorous research methods that aim to understand and incorporate the perspectives of patients, providers, families, and community members into the design of health programs.
What is Formative Research?
Formative research seeks to co-create clinical and community health interventions that are responsive to local needs and context. Formative research informs strategies to optimize intervention relevance, acceptability, feasibility, and sustainability, and can be conducted during design, implementation, and evaluation stages.
What does the Formative Research Team do?
We consult and collaborate with researchers within and beyond the Kansas City academic community to:
- Construct formative research studies on a strong foundation of social and behavioral theory
- Integrate formative research methods in grant proposals and IRB protocols
- Design and conduct rigorous in-depth interviews, focus-groups, and surveys
- Analyze qualitative data
- Disseminate formative research findings to various audiences
- Guide the integration of findings into interventions and their evaluation
Training
The Formative Research Team offers a weekly, hybrid five-session Skills Series every spring. Didactic and hands-on training session cover basics in formative research skills (even years) and qualitative research skills (odd years).
Formative Research Skills Series
This skills series covers how to design a formative research project, that incorporates theoretical and conceptual frameworks, and the role of different data gathering methods.
Qualitative Research Skills Series
This skills series covers how conduct in-depth interviews, focus-group discussions and how to analyze the qualitative data collected. The series also covers how to synthesize and disseminate qualitative findings.
Collaborating Across Health Disciplines
We use a team science approach to tackle diverse health challenges alongside researchers, clinicians and communities. Our work connects multiple disciplines and community voices to create real-world, impactful health programs.
