Chapter 1 Introduction to Nursing Research Flashcards
The nurse’s role as a consumer of research
Nurses need to know how information is gathered and organized in a research or scientific context, and be able to read and evaluate research reports.
Empirical data
Documented evidence (data) gathered through direct observation rather than a researcher’s subjective belief.
Nursing research
A systematic process of investigating problems to gain knowledge about improving care that nurses provide.
Nursing science
The body of knowledge that is unique to the discipline of nursing.
Objectivity
- Ability to distance the research process as much as possible from the scientist’s personal beliefs, values, and attitudes.
- Encourages other scientists to have confidence in the conclusions.
Qualitative research
- An approach for generating knowledge using methods of inquiry that emphasize subjectivity and the meaning of an experience for the individual.
- Participant observation, in-depth interviews, case studies, ethnographies, and narrative analyses.
Quantitative research
- An approach for generating knowledge based on determining how much of a given behavior, characteristic, or phenomenon is present.
- Experiments, questionnaires, and surveys.
Replication
- The ability of researchers to repeat a study using the same variables and methods or slight variations of them.
- An essential characteristic of a research study - increases the extent to which the research findings can be generalized.
- Important because practice changes are never based on the results of only one finding.
Research consumer
Readers of nursing research whose objective is to apply findings to nursing practice or to use the findings to conduct further research.
Research team
A group that collaborates to conduct a research project, from determining the initial research question through communicating the results.
Research rigor
Striving for excellence in research, which involves discipline, scrupulous adherence to detail, and strict accuracy.
Scientific inquiry
The process of analyzing data critically that have been gathered systematically about a particular phenomenon.
Scientific method
A systematic research process that involves the following steps:
- Selecting and defining the problem;
- Formulating research questions or hypotheses or both;
- Collecting data;
- Analyzing data;
- Reporting results.
Triangulation
- Use of quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data about a particular phenomenon.
- Can also refer to various combinations of research designs or instruments used in the same study.
Ways of knowing
An assortment of methods used to acquire new knowledge, including tradition, authority, trial and error, and intuition.
