Hi, my name is Sonia Chen. I’m a Principal Research Advisor at the Ministry of Health in New Zealand. In the last five years, I have transitioned from being a researcher and evaluator to overseeing research projects as a research commissioner and contract manager for the New Zealand government.
A crucial aspect of my role involves reviewing draft research reports and associated materials. During the review process, I have noticed some common issues.
Sometimes assumptions were presented as facts, sometimes survey questions lack the needed depth to provide the specific knowledge needed, sometimes as interesting as the findings are there is a misalignment between research aims and findings, and sometimes reporting structure and presentation of results (especially tables and charts) needed to be rearranged to effectively deliver important insight.