TABLE 2.

Themes and selected responses to the question “What is research?”

Theme	Explanation	Illustrative Quotes
Helping science (H1)	Helping science or medicine, fighting diseases	“…trying to explore different ways to fight off certain diseases or find out more about them.” “…research into health, medicine, treatments, diagnoses, all aspects of medical care and how to make it better.” “…doing studies on different people so [that] doctors/scientists get information on different diseases so that they can find reasons or cures.”
Helping others (H2)	Helping other patients or future patients	“Research helps other people with the same illness or problems.” “…research in a particular disease or illness that can benefit anyone that has the disease in the future.” “Research consists of a group of people getting together for the benefit of mankind. It allows all of us to get together to look at diseases and make life better for those who are suffering.”
	Both H1 and H2	“Research consists of trying to figure out how to cure an illness or find out more about it in order to help other people.” “…investigations to determine what treatments will be effective for disease, the extent to which they will be effective, and the designated population of diseases.”
Helping specific Participants (P1)	Finding a treatment, cure, or diagnosis for a particular patient, helping that patient get better	“…medical researching where doctors study your illness.” “…taking a group of people, giving them some tests, applying some treatments, seeing the results for a specific illness or condition.”
Investigating specific participants (P2)	Figuring out a participant problem or doing a detailed study to find something that other doctors could not figure out	“…taking a look at the issue at hand and dissecting into it to determine the cause and other variables.” “…figuring out how different things work on different people who have the same disease.”
	Both P1 and P2	“Researchers are trying to find out what the person has and to find a cure for his/her condition.” “Research consists of getting to know all the people’s problems and what they are going through to help them get better.”
Methods	Methods: procedures, tests, data collection	“…conducting procedures to find out which will affect the patient, determining whether it will have positive or negative effects.” “…collecting information to find solutions to problems or review medical conditions.”
Experimentation	Guinea pigs, experiments, feeling used	“You’re a guinea pig. They throw stuff they make at you and say ‘whoops’ if it doesn’t work.”