Question

list and provide a brief description of three types of qualitative and quanitiative research designs

Answer 1

---> Quantitative Research.

Quantitative nursing research is the study of nursing phenomena that offers precise measurement and quantification. For example, a study dealing with pain therapies quantitatively measures pain severity. A study testing different forms of surgical dressings measures the extent of wound healing. Quantitative research is the precise, systematic, objective examination of specific concepts. It focuses on numerical data, statistical analysis, and controls to eliminate bias in findings. Although there are many quantitative methods, the following sections briefly describe experimental, nonexperimental, survey, and evaluation research.

  The types of quantitative research designs most often used to conduct nursing research include:

1. Experimental research ,

2. Nonexperimental research ,  

3. Evalution reasearch .

1. Experimental Research

An RCT( Randomised Controlled Trials ) is a true experimental study that tightly controls conditions to eliminate bias and ensure that findings can be generalizable to similar groups of subjects. Researchers test an intervention (e.g., new drug, therapy, or education method) against the usual standard of care .They randomly assign subjects to either a control or treatment group. In other words, all subjects in a study have an equal chance to be in either group. The treatment group receives the experimental intervention, and the control group receives the usual standard of care. The researchers measure both groups for the same outcomes to see if there is a difference. When an RCT is completed, the researcher will know if the intervention leads to better outcomes than the standard of care.intervention tested was not the only factor affecting the results of the study. Careful critique allows you to determine if bias were present in a study and what effect, if any, the bias had on the results of the study. Although RCTs investigate cause and effect and are excellent for testing drug therapies or medical treatments, this approach is not always the best for testing nursing interventions. The nature of nursing care causes nurse researchers to ask questions that are not always answered best by an RCT. For example, nurses help patients with problems such as knowledge deficits and symptom management.

2. Nonexperimental Research

Nonexperimental descriptive studies describe, explain, or predict phenomena such as factors that lead to an adolescent’s decision to smoke cigarettes and those that lead patients with dementia to fall in a hospital setting. A case control study is one in which researchers study one group of subjects with a certain condition (e.g., asthma) at the same time as another group of subjects who do not have the condition. A case control study determines if there is an association between one or more predictor variables and the condition . For example, is there an association between predictor variables such as family history or environmental exposure to dust and the incidence of asthma? Often a case control study is conducted retrospectively, or after the fact. Researchers look back in time and review available data about their two groups of subjects to understand what variables explain the condition. These studies involve a small number of subjects, creating a risk of bias. Sometimes the subjects in the two groups differ on certain other variables (e.g., amount of stress or history of contact allergies) that also influence the incidence of the condition, more so than the variables being studied. Correlational studies describe the relationship between two variables (e.g., the age of the adolescent and if the adolescent smokes). The researcher determines if the two variables are correlated or associated with one another and to what extent. Many times researchers use findings from descriptive studies to develop studies that test interventions. For example, if the researcher determines that adolescents 15 years old and older tend to smoke, he or she might test if participation in a program about smoking for older adolescents is effective in helping adolescents stop smoking.

3. Evaluation Research

Evaluation research is a form of quantitative research that determines how well a program, practice, procedure, or policy is working . An example is outcomes management research. Evaluation research determines why a program or some components of the program are successful or unsuccessful. When programs are unsuccessful, evaluation research identifies problems with the program and opportunities for change or barriers to program implementation.

---> Qualitative Research

Qualitative nursing research is the study of phenomena that are difficult to quantify or categorize such as patients’ perceptions of illness. This method describes information obtained in a nonnumerical form (e.g., data in the form of written transcripts from a series of interviews). Qualitative research offers answers when trying to understand patients’ experiences with health problems and the contexts in which the experiences occur. Patients have the opportunity to tell their stories and share their experiences in these studies. The findings are in depth because patients are usually very descriptive in what they choose to share. Examples of qualitative studies include “patient’s perceptions of nurses’ caring in a palliative care unit,” and “the perceptions of stress by family members of critically ill patients.” Qualitative research involves inductive reasoning to develop generalizations or theories from specific observations or interviews. For example, a nurse extensively interviews cancer survivors and then summarizes the common themes from all of the interviews to inductively determine the characteristics of cancer survivors’ quality of life. Qualitative research involves the discovery and understanding of important behavioral characteristics or phenomena.

The types of qualitative research designs most often used to conduct nursing research include:

  1) Phenomenology,

2) Grounded theory,

  3) Ethnography.

1. Phenomenology

The purpose of phenomenological research is to describe specific phenomena of interest as they are lived and experienced by individuals. The focus of phenomenological studies is on understanding what an experience means within the context of people's lives. This is referred to as capturing the lived experience.For example, a research question for this approach might be "What is the experience of teens living in a family at genetic risk for Huntington disease?" The only reliable sources of information to answer this type of inquiry or question are the people experiencing the phenomena. In this example, teen participants would be sought whose parent or grandparent had tested positive or had symptoms of Huntington disease.

2. Grounded theory

Researchers use a grounded theory design when they are interested in phenomena involving the social processes underlying human experiences and behavior. For example, a research question for this approach might be "How do children cope following the death of a sibling?" In this example, children would be interviewed and asked questions, as well as their parents and, perhaps, their schoolteachers. The different concepts and patterns of coping that emerge from the analysis of the data are then synthesized into a theory to serve as a guide for further understanding or testing.The primary characteristics of grounded theory designs are theoretical sampling and the constant comparison of data with emerging categories. Data collection and analysis occur simultaneously and each piece of new data is constantly compared and contrasted with previously identified concepts.Sample sizes tend to be larger in grounded theory designs, when compared to other qualitative designs, because of need for theoretical sampling.

3. Ethnography

Researchers use ethnography as a research design when they are seeking a deeper understanding or description of a specific culture, group, or community. Ethnography involves experiencing, most often by participant observation, enquiring, through interviews and oral histories, and examining, the study of cultural documents and artifacts. Most of the time, ethnography is equated with the extended immersion of the researcher in the culture, group, or community under study. This is often referred to as fieldwork and the extensive notes taken by the researcher are referred to as field notes. Using ethnography, the researcher's responsibility is to describe the unique and distinctive processes or rules of behavior of the subculture or culture with the primary aim of further understanding and communication. The important concept in ethnographic research design is the emphasis on obtaining an emic, rather than etic, perspective.