From Dense Fog to Gentle Mist: Getting Started in Surgical Education Research

Understanding and conducting surgical education research can be difficult for the beginner. The idea that prompted this chapter is that it is useful to break down some initially opaque concepts into steps. In this chapter, the reader is taken on a journey that provides an explanation of some signposts for the novice qualitative surgical researcher. These include scoping a broad list of “burning questions” down to asking a potentially answerable question and choosing a research paradigm that aligns with researcher perspective and the research setting. Some visual tools to aid the research process are presented.