Nursing Research - Ch. 4 (Reading Research Reports)
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- Types of research reports:
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1. Oral presentations at conferences
2. Poster presentations at conferences
3. Journal articles
4. Theses (masters) and Dissertations (PhDs)
Note: These are generally peer and blind reviewed - How are Research Journal Articles formatted?
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1. TITLE (should say in the title what the PHENOMENA or INDEPENDENT and DEPENDENT VARIABLES are and WHO is involved in the study)
- QUANTITATIVE: indicates the INDEPENDENT and DEPENDENT variables and population under study
- QUALITATIVE: indicates the PHENOMENON and group under study
2. ABSTRACT: brief description of the study (traditional narrative paragraph or by headings consistent with parts of the research process)
3. Body (IMRAD format)
- Introduction
- Methods
- Results
- Analysis
- Discussion - The INTRODUCTION of a research journal article:
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- introduces the research problem and the background of the problem
- describes the following:
1. the main PHENOMENON, CONCEPTS, or VARIABLES under study
2. the PURPOSE of the study
3. the research QUESTIONS of HYPOTHESES to be examined
4. the REVIEW of the literature
5. the THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
6. the SIGNIFICANCE or IMPORTANCE of the study - The INTRODUCTION corresponds to what phase of the research project?
- CONCEPTUAL PHASE
- The METHOD of a research journal article:
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- describes the approach used to answer the research questions or address the hypotheses
- addresses the following:
1. research DESIGN - overall plan for structuring the study (ex. grounded theory, quantitative theory, quantitative study, phenomenology, etc.)
2. POPULATION and SAMPLE: INCLUSION and EXCLUSION criteria (ex. Inclusion: must be able to read and write English; Exclusion: pregnant women or children under the age of 16 years)
3. MEASUREMENT TOOLS and DATA COLLECTION (operationalization of variables):
- QUANTITATIVE: ex. surveys, questionnaires
- QUALITATIVE: ex. interviews
4. Study procedures (description of intervention; ethics) - The METHOD section corresponds to what phase of a research project?
- DEISGN AND PLANNING & EMPIRICAL PHASES
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The RESULTS of a research journal article:
Note: *different from the discussion (need to be able to distinguish the difference) -
- DESCRIBE the research findings
- address the following for QUANTITATIVE research:
1. DESCRIPTIVE information about the participants and variables
2. STATISTICAL tests used
3. VALUES calculated from the statistical tests
4. SIGNIFICANCE and level of significance
- address the following for QUALITATIVE research:
1. Descriptive information about the participants, setting
2. Themes (usually have headers [one or two words that describe the phenomenon], concepts, theory) - The RESULTS section corresponds to what phase of a research project?
- The ANALYTIC PHASE
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The DISCUSSION of a research journal article:
Note: **different from the results (be able to tell the difference) -
- describe the meaning and implications of the findings
- address the following:
1.INTERPRETATION of the results
2. IMPLICATIONS for practice, further research, theory, policy (policy may need to change based on the results)
3. Study LIMITATIONS
- References - The STYLE of research articles:
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- Compact (must be concise - only include main points)
- Avoid Jargon
- Objective
- Statistical information (tables, charts) - To UNDERSTAND the content of research reports:
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1. Read them FREQUENTLY (especially for quantitative)
2. HIGHLIGHT and write notes in the margins
3. read SLOWLY
4. be and ACTIVE reader
5. do not get bogged down in STATISTICAL INFORMATION
6. prepare a SYNOPSIS (what was done? what was good about it? etc.) - How does one CRITIQUE ad research report?
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PEER REVIEWERS:
- Substantive
- Theoretical
- Methodical
- Ethical
- Interpretive
- Stylistic
CLINICIANS:
- clinical meaningfulness and usefulness -
Which section of a journal article would contain a statistical analysis?
a. Abstract
b. Methods
c. Results
d. Discussion -
c. Results
- the statistical analysis as well as the raw data would be presented without interpretation in the results section.