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
o Briefly, describe the characteristics of qualitative research and identify nursing issues/phenomena that lend themselves to a qualitative research approach.
o Compare and contrast three different qualitative research methodologies.
o Briefly, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research evidence for informing nursing practice.
o Communicate how this research design used in research.
2. The study, sampling, data collection, analysis, rigor, findings and limitations
o Identify the purpose of the study.
o Briefly, describe the design of the study and explain why you think it is either appropriate or inappropriate to meet the purpose.
o Identify ethical issues related to the study and how they were/were not addressed.
o Identify the sampling method and recruitment strategy that was used.
o Discuss whether sampling and recruitment were appropriate to the aims of the research.
o Identify the data collection method(s) and discuss whether the method(s) is/are appropriate to the aims of the study.
o Identify how the data was analyzed and discuss whether the method(s) of analysis is/are appropriate to the aims of the study.
o Identify four (4) criteria by which the rigor of a qualitative project can be judged.
o Discuss the rigor of this study using the four criteria.
o Briefly, describe the findings of the study and identify any limitations.
o 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):
o Describe the characteristics of quantitative research.
o Identify nursing issues/phenomena that lend themselves to a quantitative research approach
o Differentiate between observational and interventional research designs and also between experimental and quasi-experimental designs.
o Briefly, outline the difference between inferential and descriptive statistics and their relationship to levels of measurement.
o 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):
o 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.
o 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.
o 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.
o 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.
o 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.
