Today marks Day 3451 of my journey.
It has been over nine years since I transitioned from being a pharmacist to providing medical statistical services.
Time really flies when you are buried in data!
Earlier today, I had a "small world" moment.
I met a doctor from USM, the same place where I studied many years ago.
To my surprise, her department still kept my business card—even though I graduated more than 10 years ago!
It is a humbling feeling to know that a small piece of paper survived a decade of office cleaning, just waiting for the right person to pick it up.
We sat down to discuss her struggle.
She has a research title, and her proposal is approved, but she is stuck.
She knows what she wants to study (the perception of hospital workers), but she doesn't know the direction or the "how."
Her plan involves translating an existing questionnaire and testing it on a group of workers.
As we talked, I had to clarify where my "boundaries" are. Many people think "stats is stats," but in research, there are different specialties. She needs to translate a questionnaire, which usually requires Validation.
Validating a questionnaire is the process of making sure your "ruler" actually measures what it says it measures. If you translate an English tool into Bahasa Malaysia, you cannot just assume it still works the same. You have to check if the questions are culturally relevant, if the language is clear, and if the mathematical structure holds up. This involves pilot testing, back-translation, and complex statistical techniques like Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) or Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM) to prove the tool is reliable and valid.
I don't do this specific part of the work. For SEM or Qualitative research, I usually pass the task to my trusted network of experts. (If you provide these services for a similar population, please comment below—I’d love to connect!)