Smart PICO - Science-to-Business Marketing Research Centre

Step-by-Step

This method includes the parameters: Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome. In addition, the method is partially extended by the parameters Time and Study Design. For Science/Society projects, the method has been modified to include the SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic, and Time) from project management as a guide for defining research questions.

1. Create a list where you work on the following parameters for your research question:

a. Problem: what is the problem situation? What is the actual issue?

b. Population: Who is affected by this problem? Gender? Age? Characteristics?

c. Intervention: What measures are being considered or already in place to address the problem?

d. Comparison: Are there possible alternative measures that can be taken to solve the problem?

e. Outcome: What is the desired result?

f. Study Design: Do you want to conduct a qualitative or quantitative study? Should the analysis take the form of a survey, observation, etc.?

g. Specific/Measurable: How can we measure the success of our study?

h. Acceptable/Realistic: What is feasible? How can you involve the project participants in the decision? For example, by offering choices from a variety of alternatives.

i. Time: When should the goal be achieved? When should the study be carried out?

2. Use the given parameters to define your research question or to design your interview guide. Try to include all parameters. Your research question should be short and concise according to the SMART criteria.

3. The parameters can be adjusted if necessary, but should not deviate too much from the actual parameters and still cover a large part of them.

More about the tool

Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages:

The method helps to structure the research interest.
The method helps to keep the research interest in mind and not to deviate from the actual research question when creating the study design.
The individual parameters are helpful in setting priorities in the project.

Disadvantages:

Even with this tool, developing research questions requires prior literature review and discussion among project members.
The process of researching and formulating a question is iterative. Attempts should be made to go back from research to the question throughout the process to verify that they still match.
For visionary goals, it is often necessary to first act non-specifically and define more specific sub-goals. This is often neglected in the Smart PICO method because it works with specific formulations.

Application into practice

In münster.land.leben, the sub-project "Fall Management with Civic Engagement" aims to find out what the supporting and inhibiting factors are for social volunteering in the community. To this end, those responsible for the project explored the question of what support should look like in an emergency health situation or after a fall at home, so that those affected and their relatives feel safe and comfortable. In this context, the experiences and wishes of older persons were to be elaborated in order to be able to derive from the conversations what a possible chain of care could look like in the future. In order to develop a suitable research question for the conversations with the concerned persons and to create an interview guide, those responsible for the project used the Smart PICO method. In the first approach, twenty seniors were interviewed in the form of qualitative phone interviews on the topic of "growing older in one's own home". For this, in addition to the parameters of the PICO method from the clinical context - population, intervention, outcome, and study design (comparison was not used because no alternative measures were known at that time), SMART criteria from the management context - specific & measurable, acceptable & realistic, and time - were added. Based on previous experiences from the subproject, the Smart PICO scheme was filled in. Based on the parameters of the Smart PICO method, two corresponding questions were elaborated: Is there a need and willingness on the part of the citizens to deal with preparatory measures for fall management? Which measures and actors are desired in fall situations and is there willingness to use and provide support? Overall, the method helped the project managers not to lose sight of the core of the question during the discussion. With the help of the interesting findings from the individual interviews, the project managers succeeded in answering the previously developed research questions.

Hints from practice

The aspect of alternative measures (Comparison) is not necessary for every project and can be adapted or omitted.
In scientific writing, research questions can be shorter than in direct scientific communication with civil society. Consider your target audience when creating your research question.
This method is not an alternative to literature review; on the contrary, information from the literature will help you determine the Smart PICO criteria.
Use signal words when writing your research question: A "how" or "why" question is often qualitative, while a "what" question is quantitative. Other signal words include e.g. perceive, compare, explore.
If you want to learn from good practices for research questions, be aware that the question is often written as a research objective, without a question mark at the end.

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