Nurs360 week 1

What is symptom science?

promoting personalized health strategies

What is wellness?

promoting health and preventing disease

Self management is

improving quality of life for individuals with chronic illness

Paradigm is

Worldview or general perspective of the world’s complexities

Assumption is

A principle that is believed to be true without verification

Key paradigms for nursing research are

Positivist paradigm and Constructivist paradigm

Characteristics of positivist paradigm

• Reality exists

• The researcher is independent from those they are studying

• Check your biases, be objective

• Use discrete concepts, fixed design

• Exert control over contexts

• Collect quantifiable information

• PURPOSE—generalization 

• (QUANTITATIVE—Deductive process.  Hypothesis testing)

Characteristics of constructivist paradigm

• Reality is subjective, we construct it

• It is impossible for the researcher to separate from surroundings-interactive

• Subjectivity is desirable

• Focus on non-quantifiable

• Purpose is insight, in-depth understanding

• Design can be flexible and emergent

• (QUALITATIVE—Inductive process.  Hypothesis generation)

Common features in both positivist and constructivist paradigms

• Ultimate goals

• External evidence

• Reliance on human cooperation

• Ethical constraints

• Fallibility

Who contributes information in quantitative research?

subject, participant, respondent

Who contributes information in qualitative research?

study participant, informant

What is being investigated in quantitative research?

variables, concepts, constructs

What is being investigated in qualitative research?

phenomena, concepts, constructs

How is information gathered expressed in quantitative research?

data is expressed numerically

How is information gathered expressed in quantitative research?

data is expressed as numbers

Connections studied in quantitative research?

causal relationships

Connections studied in qualitative research?

patterns of association

Concepts is

abstractions of human behavior or characteristics in quantitative studies (general mental category for word ex: pain, weight)

Phenomena is

abstracts in qualitative studies

Constructs is

slightly more complex abstractions (ex: self care)

Theories do what

knit concepts into coherent system that purports to explain phenomena

Variable is

a characteristic / quality that takes on different values; varies from one person to another

The term “variable” is used almost exclusively with what type of research

quantitative

Positivism paradigm is associated with what type of research study?

Quantitative

Constructivist paradigm is associated with what type of research study?

Qualitative

IV and DV terms can be used to indicate

direction of influence

Conceptual is

the abstract or the theoretical meaning of a concept being studied

Operational is

the operations (measurements) a researcher must perform to measure the concept and collect the desired information

“Pain- an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with potential tissue damage” is an example of Conceptual or Operational?

Conceptual

“Self reported number between 0-10 on numeric pain scale” is an example of Conceptual or Operational?

Operational

Cause and effect is

causal relationship e.g cig smoking and lung cancer

Associative is

functional relationship e.g gender and life expectancy

Qualitative study of pattern

Qualitative researchers look for patterns of associations to find underlying meaning and dimensionality of phenomena of interest

Experimental research

• researchers actively introduce an intervention / treatment to address therapy questions

• clinical trials

• test causal relationships

Nonexperimental research

• researchers collect data without intervening or introducing treatments

• observational studies

Qualitative research include

• grounded theory research

• phenomenological research

• ethnographic research

Grounded theory research

seeks to understand key social psychological processes that are grounded in reality

Phenomenological research

focuses on the lived experiences of humans

Ethnographic research

focuses on the patterns and lifeways of a cultural group and strives to learn from members of a cultural group to understand their worldview and to describe their customs and norms

Phase 1 Quantitative study

1. formulate the problem

2. reviewing related literature

3. clinical fieldwork

4. define framework and develop conceptual definitions

5. formulate hypotheses

Phase 2 Quantitative study

6. select a research design

7. develop intervention protocols

8. identify the population

9. design sampling plan

10. specify methods to measure variables and collect data

11. developing methods to protect human/animal rights

12. reviewing and initializing research plan

Phase 3 Quantitative study

13. collecting the data

14. preparing data for analysis (coding the data)

Phase 4 Quantitative study

15. Analyzing the data (through statistical analysis)

16. interpreting results

Phase 5 Quantitative study

17. communicating the findings in a research report

18. putting the evidence into practice

Activities in a Qualitative study

1. identify research problem

2. do literature review

3. select sites and gain entree

4. develop an overall approach

5. addressing ethical issues

6. deciding what type of data to gather and how to gather them

7. deciding from whom to collect the data

8. deciding how to enhance trustworthiness

9. conducting the study