Glossary of Research Terms

is a type of central tendency of a group of measurements.  It is calculated by adding up all the measurements and dividing by the number of measurements included in the group.

is calculated by dividing an individual's weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters - (weight/height²) It has been found to predict risk for a variety of medical conditions.

is a general term for the least amount of improvement in a condition that is expected to be regarded as worthwhile by patients.

is a type of central tendency within a group of measurements. It is found by listing a set of measurements in order from greatest to least, then for lists with an odd number of measurements by finding the value that has the same number of measurements above as below, and for even numbered lists finding the average between the two measurements with the same number of entries above as below.

is an estimate of the caution which we should have in generalizing from a finding of an average difference between two sets of measurements that is found in a study with a limited number of subjects to a larger population from which those subjects were selected. The two sets of measurements in the limited study might be those taken before and after a therapeutic treatment. Multiplying a p-value by 100 gives a percentage value for the probability that if the same study were conducted with the larger population, then an average of no difference would be found, which would mean the results of the smaller study did not generalize, On the other hand, the lower that probability of no average difference in the larger population is, the greater our confidence that an average difference at least as great as that found in the more limited study would also be found in the larger population. That is why smaller p-values suggest greater confidence in generalizing from the results of a limited study that a comparable difference would also be found in other samples of the larger population.

is a practice in which articles submitted for publication in a journal are sent for critical review by panels of experts in the relevant field of study. Such reviews can result in recommendations to publish, not to publish, or to return a manuscript to its authors for revision.  Articles that appear in peer-reviewed journals are regarded as more reliable than those appearing in journals that do not use peer-review.

is the improvement in symptoms of illness that sometimes results from a patient’s belief that they are receiving an effective therapy. Placebo effects occur as part of patients' responses to actually effective therapies and also to therapies that have no objective effect. A large number of various factors influence the occurrence and magnitude of placebo effects.

is a service-mark brand name for the type of Structural Integration taught by the Dr. Rolf Institute.

 is a treatment protocol originated and taught by Ida Rolf.  It is still taught by the Dr. Rolf Institute at the basic level of practitioner training.

is a general term for the application of any of a very large number of techniques for characterizing the properties of and relationships between sets of measurements.  The most common of these in research articles are averages, medians, ranges of variation, correlations, degrees of variability within sets of measurements, and estimates of the probability that the outcome of the study conducted with a limited number of subjects might not be replicated in in additional studies conducted with other samples of subjects from the same larger population.

is conventionally defined as a study outcome which is found to have a p-value of less than or equal to 0.05.  There is, however, no compelling  scientific reason that that is regarded as the criterion for significance, and p-values of greater than 0.05 are sometimes identified as indicating a "trend" to significance.