Framing Questions and Finding Sources in Midwifery Practice
With Emma and Ethan, Academic Skills Specialist
Key Takeaways
- A well-framed question focuses your research.
- In midwifery, vague questions lead to overwhelming amounts of information.
- PICO is widely used — Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome.
- So instead of asking 'does skin-to-skin contact help?', you'd ask something far more precise about a specific population and measurable outcome.
- Academic databases are the starting point — CINAHL is specifically health-focused, PubMed covers biomedical research, and the Cochrane Library provides systematic reviews.
Listen to This Episode
Full interactive lesson available inside the course — Start learning →
Full Transcript
Emma: Welcome to Framing Questions and Finding Sources in Midwifery Practice. I'm Emma, and with me is Ethan, our Academic Skills Specialist. Ethan, why does framing a research question matter so much in midwifery study?
Ethan: A well-framed question focuses your research. In midwifery, vague questions lead to overwhelming amounts of information. A clear, specific question helps you find relevant, usable evidence efficiently.
Emma: What tools do students use to frame a clinical or academic question?
Ethan: PICO is widely used — Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome. So instead of asking 'does skin-to-skin contact help?', you'd ask something far more precise about a specific population and measurable outcome.
Emma: Once you have a well-formed question, where do midwifery students go to find evidence?
What should learners understand about framing questions and finding sources in midwifery practice?
Ethan: Academic databases are the starting point — CINAHL is specifically health-focused, PubMed covers biomedical research, and the Cochrane Library provides systematic reviews. These are far more reliable than general web searches.
Emma: Students often default to Google. What's the problem with that for academic work?
Ethan: Google surfaces popular pages, not necessarily peer-reviewed evidence. For clinical questions in midwifery, you need sources that have been scrutinised for quality. That's what academic databases provide.
Emma: How do you actually search a database effectively? It's not the same as typing into Google.
Ethan: You use Boolean operators — AND, OR, NOT — to combine or exclude terms. And truncation, like placing an asterisk after a word stem to capture variations. These let you cast the right net for your question.
How is framing questions and finding sources in midwifery practice applied in real-world midwifery?
Emma: What kinds of sources are considered most reliable in midwifery practice?
Ethan: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses sit at the top of the evidence hierarchy, followed by randomised controlled trials. NICE guidelines, which are based on this evidence, are also highly relevant for UK midwifery practice.
Emma: And grey literature — reports, government documents — where does that fit?
Ethan: It's valuable, especially for policy context. NHS England reports, MBRRACE maternal mortality data, and midwifery professional guidance are all grey literature that matters enormously in practice.
Emma: How should students evaluate whether a source is worth using?
What should learners understand about framing questions and finding sources in midwifery practice?
Ethan: Check currency — is it recent enough? Check authority — who published it? Check accuracy — is it evidence-based? The CRAAP test is a useful framework: Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose.
Emma: Ethan, for a student just getting started with databases, what's the one piece of advice you'd give?
Ethan: Start with your question, not the database. Write out exactly what you want to find, then translate that into search terms. It prevents the overwhelm that comes from just browsing and hoping for the best.