NURSING RESEARCH COLLECTING DATA

EXISTING DATA VS NEW DATA Existing Data Historical Research Secondary Data Analysis Advantages: Records are economical, give trends over time, response bias may be completely absent, cooperation not an issue. Disadvantages: Researcher may be unaware of bias: Selective deposit and selective survival. Incomplete records.

KEY DIMENSIONS OF DATA COLLECTION METHODS Structure : Data given in comparable, prespecified ways; Naturalistic (used in field studies) Quantifiability : Collect data so can be quantified (Structured methods can usually be more easily quantified.) Qualitative data is analyzed in narrative form.

Obtrusiveness : Issue is if researcher is too obtrusive the subjects will not act normally and if the subjects are unaware they are in a study, an ethical problem exists. Objectivity : Generally the goal is to be as objective as possible in making judgments. In phenomenological based research the subjective judgment of the investigator is considered a valuable component of data collection.

SELF REPORT METHODS Advantages: Offers direct approach to gathering info, information gathered is unattainable via other methods, and can gather retrospective data (past behaviors). Disadvantages: Validity and accuracy of reports. Validity = does it measure what it is suppose to?

QUALITATIVE SELF REPORT Unstructured : No specific questions, no specific order. Interviews tend to be conversational - used in qualitative research. Completely Unstructured Focused Interview Diaries Focus group Interviews Life Histories

Unstructured interviews are most helpful in areas where new research is being employed. Unstructured methods are time consuming and demanding of the researcher's organizational, analyzing, and interpretive skills.

STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS AND QUESTIONNAIRES Formal written documents (interview schedule, questionnaire, instrument)

QUESTION FORMS Closed-ended (fixed alternative) - ensures comparability of response and facilitates analysis. Advantage: Easier to administer and analyze, more efficient. Some people will not take time to answer open-ended questions. Disadvantage: More difficult to construct. Researcher may overlook or neglect some important potential responses. Information is often superficial.

Open ended Advantage: Allow for richer fuller perspective. Some respondents resist choosing from among alternatives that do not reflect their opinions precisely. Disadvantage: Time consuming to analyze.

Instruments : Each question must be analyzed for clarity, sensitivity to the respondent's psychological state, freedom from biases and reading level. Pretest : A trial run, usually with a smaller group. The purpose is to determine if questions are clearly worded and free from a major biases, and whether questions solicit the type of information envisioned.

INTERVIEWS VERSUS QUESTIONNAIRES Interpersonal skills of the interviewer are important in interviews. Advantages of questionnaires over interviews: Less costly, require less time & energy to administer Allow for complete anonymity - important in surveying socially unacceptable behaviors Reflects no bias based on an interviewer's presence (a weakness is that there is often selection bias)

Strengths of interviews far outweigh questionnaires. Their advantages are: High response rate (low response rate leads to bias) Many people are unable to fill out questionnaires Less prone to misinterpretation by respondents Additional information is gained via observation.

SCALES AND OTHER FORMS OF STRUCTURED SELF-REPORTS Device designed to assign a numeric score to subjects to place them on a continuum with respects to attributes being measured (ie., weight).

Composite Scale : Likert (a summated rating scale) Semantic Differential (SD) Visual Analog (VA)-post op example Visual Analog (VA)post op example Advantages: Allows for efficient quantification of subtle gradations in the strength or intensity of individual characteristics. Can do individual & groups comparisons. Can administer verbally or in writing.

Disadvantages: Response set biases. Social desirability: Give answers consistent with current social views Extreme Response set biases: Consistent expression of attitudes in the extreme Other persons always answer in the middle acquiescence response set bias "yea-sayers" - agree regardless of content "nay-sayers" - disagree regardless of content Counterbalancing is an attempt to overcome or at least to detect this. Counterbalancing

Critiquing scales: They are time consuming. New instruments prevent comparisons across studies. Critiquing scales:

VIGNETTES Involve brief descriptions if events or situations to which respondents are asked to react Advantages: *Economical way to elicit information about how people might behave in situations that are difficult to observe in daily life Possible to experimentally manipulate stimuli by randomly assigning vignettes to subjects Can incorporate vignettes into mailed questionnaires Disadvantage: Validity of responses (self-report) - is it an accurate description of how the respondent would actually behave?

OBSERVATIONAL METHODS Nurses are in an excellent position to observe relatively unobtrusively. Researcher defines observational unit. Observer Concealment : refers to researcher's openness in admitting to subject that they are part of a study Reactivity : Behavioral distortions due to observation Advantages : Can measure broad range of phenomena, extremely versatile, and researcher can vary degree of structure.

UNSTRUCTURED OBSERVATION METHODS Commonly used in field studies. Collective descriptive data that is analyzed qualitatively. Researcher guided by questions but not constrained by them. Participant Observation: Advantages: Offers source of data and a basis for understanding what the data mean.

GATHERING AND RECORDING DATA Single positions: observing in a single location Multiple positions: moving around site to observe behaviors from different locations Mobile positioning: follow person throughout a given activity or period Log: Daily record of events and conversations Field Notes: May include a log, but are broader, more analytic and interpretive.

STRUCTURED OBSERVATIONAL METHODS Involves specifying behaviors or events for observation and the preparation of record-keeping forms. Category system - need to decide if want to observe particular behaviors or all behaviors within a specific domain. Must explicitly define the behaviors and characteristics to be observed. (This requires that some inferences must be made.) Checklists Rating Scales

Observational Sampling - obtain representative behaviors Time sampling : Time frames selected for observation Event Sampling : Integral behaviors or prescribed events are chosen for observation.

ADVANTAGES Used whenever people cannot be expected to adequately describe their own behaviors (ie., unaware of own behavior, embarrassed, or emotionally laden, not capable of articulating their actions)

DISADVANTAGES Ethical difficulties Reactivity Lack of consent Vulnerability of observation data to distortions and biases. Personal commitment and interest may color interpretation May observe what expect to observe Hasty decisions without adequate data collection can result in erroneous conclusions or classifications. Emotions, prejudices, attitudes of observer

EVALUATION OF UNSTRUCTURED OBSERVATIONS : ADVANTAGES Offer deeper richer understanding of human behaviors and social situations. Flexible (Critics of quantitative approaches say they are too mechanistic and superficial to render a meaningful account of the intricate nature of human behavior). Useful for in-depth study that allows conceptualization of important variables that can lead to a hypothesis.

EVALUATION OF UNSTRUCTURED OBSERVATIONS: DISADVANTAGES Observer bias and influence, Emotional involvement of researcher, Researcher may develop myopic view. Are highly dependent on the observational and interpersonal skills of the researcher. Note: More structured observational methods are bettered suited to testing of hypothesis.

BIOPHYSICAL MEASURES Nursing Studies include the following: Studies of basic physiologic processes (cardiovascular index at rest) Exploration of the ways in which nursing actions affect the health outcome of patients (ice water with MIs). Evaluation of specific nursing procedure or intervention. Studies to improve the measurement and recording of biophysiologic information.

TYPES In vitro - data obtained from extracting biophysiological material from subjects and subjecting it to laboratory analysis. In vivo - measures performed directly on living organisms.

ADVANTAGES Objective Fairly accurate, precise and sensitive. Patients are unlikely to distort measures. Valid measures for targeted variables. Equipment available to nurses at low or no cost.

DISADVANTAGES The measuring tool may affect variable trying to measure. Artifacts may interfere with measures, the high interaction among biophysiologic systems may can complicate results and energy must often be applied to the organism when taking measurements.

In evaluating research methods always ask: IS the data collection strategy appropriate to the research question? The choice of how to measure must be linked to how the variable is conceptualized in the research problem.

IMPLEMENTING DATA COLLECTION PLAN Who will collect data? Will they introduce any bias? Can they produce data that are accurate and believable? Circumstances under which data is collected is important: degree of privacy, non-judgmental atmosphere Anything about the way data was collected that could have introduced bias? Was data collected to minimize distortion or bias?