Critical Research Appraisal Assignment

## Critical Research Appraisal Assignment

### Qualitative Research

#### What is Qualitative Research?
Qualitative research is an approach used to gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations. It provides insights into the problem or helps to develop ideas or hypotheses for potential quantitative research. It is used to uncover trends in thought and opinions and dive deeper into the problem.

#### Characteristics of Qualitative Research
– **Exploratory Nature:** Aims to explore phenomena.
– **Open-ended Data:** Collects non-numerical data like text, video, or audio.
– **Subjective Analysis:** Focuses on the meanings, concepts, definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and descriptions of things.
– **Contextual Understanding:** Emphasizes the context in which the study occurs.
– **Flexible Methods:** Utilizes various data collection methods like interviews, focus groups, and observations.

#### Nursing Issues/Phenomena for Qualitative Research
– Patient experiences with chronic illness.
– The impact of healthcare practices on patient outcomes.
– Coping mechanisms in nurses dealing with high-stress environments.

#### Qualitative Research Methodologies
– **Phenomenology:** Explores the lived experiences of individuals.
– **Grounded Theory:** Aims to develop a theory grounded in data from the field.
– **Ethnography:** Studies cultures and communities by immersing in the environment.

#### Strengths and Weaknesses of Qualitative Research
– **Strengths:**
– Provides depth and detail.
– Uncovers context and setting.
– Captures the lived experience and meanings.
– **Weaknesses:**
– Time-consuming.
– Subjective interpretation.
– Limited generalizability.

#### Use of Qualitative Research Design in Research
Qualitative research design is employed to explore complex phenomena within their contexts. It is particularly useful in nursing to understand patient experiences, healthcare environments, and the impact of health policies.

### Study Appraisal

#### The Study
– **Purpose:** To understand patient experiences with diabetes management in a community setting.
– **Design:** Phenomenological study to capture lived experiences.
– **Appropriateness:** Suitable to explore the depth of patient experiences.
– **Ethical Issues:** Informed consent and confidentiality were ensured.
– **Sampling Method:** Purposive sampling, recruiting participants from a community health center.
– **Appropriateness:** Suitable for capturing in-depth experiences from specific individuals.
– **Data Collection:** In-depth interviews and focus groups.
– **Appropriateness:** Aligned with the aim of understanding personal experiences.
– **Data Analysis:** Thematic analysis to identify common themes.
– **Appropriateness:** Effective for identifying patterns in qualitative data.
– **Rigor Criteria:** Credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability.
– **Rigor:** Met through member checking, thick description, audit trails, and reflexivity.
– **Findings:** Detailed patient experiences and identified barriers to effective management.
– **Limitations:** Small sample size and potential researcher bias.

#### Trustworthiness and Applicability
The study is trustworthy due to its rigorous methods and can be applied to improve patient-centered diabetes care. The findings highlight important areas for intervention, making them relevant for nursing practice.

### Quantitative Research

#### What is Quantitative Research?
Quantitative research is used to quantify the problem by way of generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into usable statistics. It is used to quantify attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and other defined variables and generalize results from a larger sample population.

#### Characteristics of Quantitative Research
– **Structured Methods:** Uses tools like surveys, questionnaires, and structured interviews.
– **Objective Analysis:** Relies on numerical data and statistical analysis.
– **Large Samples:** Often involves larger sample sizes to ensure generalizability.
– **Replicability:** Studies can be replicated to verify results.

#### Nursing Issues/Phenomena for Quantitative Research
– The effectiveness of a new medication on blood pressure control.
– The prevalence of hospital-acquired infections.
– Patient outcomes based on nurse-patient ratios.

#### Research Designs
– **Observational:** Non-interventional, such as cohort or cross-sectional studies.
– **Interventional:** Involves interventions, such as randomized controlled trials.
– **Experimental:** Random assignment to control and experimental groups.
– **Quasi-experimental:** Lacks random assignment but still includes interventions.

#### Inferential vs. Descriptive Statistics
– **Descriptive Statistics:** Summarize the main features of a dataset.
– **Inferential Statistics:** Make inferences about a population based on a sample.

### Study Appraisal

#### The Study
– **Purpose:** To evaluate the effectiveness of a new diabetes management program.
– **Design:** Randomized controlled trial (RCT).
– **Blinding:** Ensures participants and/or researchers do not know group assignments to prevent bias.
– **Randomization:** Randomly assigns participants to control or intervention groups.
– **Ethical Issues:** Informed consent, risk minimization, and confidentiality were addressed.

#### Sampling
– **Method:** Random sampling from a community health center.
– **Sample Size Determination:** Based on power calculations to detect a significant effect.

#### Data Collection
– **Method:** Surveys and blood glucose measurements.
– **Instruments:** Validated questionnaires and calibrated glucose meters.
– **Validity:** Accuracy of the instruments.
– **Reliability:** Consistency of the measurements.

#### Data Analysis
– **Method:** Statistical tests such as t-tests and ANOVA.
– **Statistics:** Descriptive (mean, standard deviation) and inferential (p-values, confidence intervals).
– **Level of Measurement:** Includes nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.

#### Findings and Limitations
– **Findings:** Significant improvement in glucose control in the intervention group.
– **Limitations:** Limited to one community, potential for selection bias.

Trustworthiness and Applicability
The study is trustworthy due to rigorous design and valid data collection methods. Its findings are applicable to similar settings, and it provides evidence for the effectiveness of the intervention. Statistical significance indicates that the results are not due to chance, supporting their reliability and relevance for nursing practice.

Critical Research Appraisal Assignment

Goal:

You will critically appraise a research design

Content Requirements: 

You will select one research report with a qualitative design and one with quantitative design and answer the following questions regarding the following categories:

1. Discuss what is meant by the term Qualitative Research
   • Briefly, describe the characteristics of qualitative research and identify nursing issues/phenomena that lend themselves to a qualitative research approach.
   • Compare and contrast three different qualitative research methodologies.
   • Briefly, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research evidence for informing nursing practice.
   • Communicate how this research design used in research.
2. The study, sampling, data collection, analysis, rigor, findings and limitations
   • Identify the purpose of the study.
   • Briefly, describe the design of the study and explain why you think it is either appropriate or inappropriate to meet the purpose.
   • Identify ethical issues related to the study and how they were/were not addressed.
   • Identify the sampling method and recruitment strategy that was used.
   • Discuss whether sampling and recruitment were appropriate to the aims of the research.
   • Identify the data collection method(s) and discuss whether the method(s) is/are appropriate to the aims of the study.
   • Identify how the data was analyzed and discuss whether the method(s) of analysis is/are appropriate to the aims of the study.
   • Identify four (4) criteria by which the rigor of a qualitative project can be judged.
   • Discuss the rigor of this study using the four criteria.
   • Briefly, describe the findings of the study and identify any limitations.
   • Use the information that you have gained from your critique of the study to discuss the trustworthiness and applicability of the study. Include in your discussion any implications for the discipline of nursing.
3. Discuss what you understand by the term Quantitative Research – Use the following dot points to guide your discussion (give reasons for your argument and support with references):
   • Describe the characteristics of quantitative research.
   • Identify nursing issues/phenomena that lend themselves to a quantitative research approach
   • Differentiate between observational and interventional research designs and also between experimental and quasi-experimental designs.
   • Briefly, outline the difference between inferential and descriptive statistics and their relationship to levels of measurement.
   • Communicate how this research design used in research.
4. Critique the Quantitative Research Report – Use the following headings to guide your critique (in all discussions and explanations give reasons for your argument and support with references):
   • The study
     • Identify the purpose and design of the study.
     • Explain what is meant by ‘blinding’ and ‘randomization’ and discuss how these were addressed in the design of the study.
     • Identify ethical issues related to the study and how they were/were not addressed.
   •  Sampling
     • Explain the sampling method and recruitment strategy that was used.
     • Discuss how the sample size was determined – include in your discussion an explanation of terms used.
   • Data collection
     • Briefly, outline how the data was collected and identify any data collection instrument(s).
     • Define the terms validity and reliability and discuss how the validity & reliability of the instruments were/were not addressed in this study and why this is important.
   • Data analysis
     • Outline how the data were analyzed.
     • Identify the statistics used and the level of measurement of the data described by each statistical test – include in your discussion an explanation of terms used.
   • Findings and limitations
     • Briefly, outline the findings and identify any limitations of the study
     • Use the information that you have gained from your critique of the study to briefly discuss the trustworthiness and applicability of the study. Include in your discussion an explanation of the term statistical significance and name the tests of statistical significance used in this study.

 

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