What is the most common data collection method used by nurses in quantitative research?

This article describes the basic tenets of quantitative research. The concepts of dependent and independent variables are addressed and the concept of measurement and its associated issues, such as error, reliability and validity, are explored. Experiments and surveys – the principal research designs in quantitative research – are described and key features explained. The importance of the double-blind randomised controlled trial is emphasised, alongside the importance of longitudinal surveys, as opposed to cross-sectional surveys. Essential features of data storage are covered, with an emphasis on safe, anonymous storage. Finally, the article explores the analysis of quantitative data, considering what may be analysed and the main uses of statistics in analysis.

Nursing Standard. 29, 31, 44-48. doi: 10.7748/ns.29.31.44.e8681

Peer review

This article has been subject to double blind peer review

Received: 13 December 2013

Accepted: 25 February 2014

Want to read more?

Already subscribed? Log in

OR

Unlock full access to RCNi Plus today

Save over 50% on your first 3 months

Your subscription package includes:

• Unlimited online access to all 10 RCNi Journals and their archives
• Customisable dashboard featuring 200+ topics
• RCNi Learning featuring 180+ RCN accredited learning modules
• RCNi Portfolio to build evidence for revalidation
• Personalised newsletters tailored to your interests

Subscribe

RCN student member? Try Nursing Standard Student

Alternatively, you can purchase access to this article for the next seven days. Buy now

Or

Introduction

Selection of effective research methods is necessary to investigate a field and the related consequences in a critical manner. Quantitative and qualitative methods are two essential research methods which can be easily applied in the nursing fields and it is helpful to investigate over a healthcare situation be collecting lots of relevant data. The blog will be developed based on this scenario.

Types Of Qualitative Research Method

As per the qualitative research concerned in nursing, it is quite obvious that, there are mainly 4 segments, those are,

1) phenomenology, 2) ethnography, 3) grounded theory, and 4) narrative inquiry.

1. Phenomenology

The need of phenomenological research is basically describing a particular phenomenon of interest as it will be experienced by individuals (Atashzadeh Shoorideh et al. 2020). To know about the context of people’s lives, phenomenological studies are important and it’s also pointed as a lived experience. “What is the experience of teens living in a family at genetic risk for Huntington’s disease?” To select a sample for a phenomenological study, the researcher purposely selects individuals or groups that have experienced the phenomenon.

2. Ethnography

As mentioned by Ahlstedt et al. (2019), for knowing about a specific culture of a particular group or an individual, in that case ethnography comes into the place. Ethnography involves experiencing, most often by enquiring, participant observation, examining, through interviews and oral histories and, the study of cultural documents and artifacts. Using ethnography, the researcher’s responsibility is to describe the distinctive and unique processes or rules of behavior of the culture or subculture with the primary aim of further understanding and communication.

3. Grounded Theory

When the researchers are interested to do research on the social process of human experience and behavior, they certainly need to use a grounded theory design for sure. If there is a question like, “How do children cope following the death of a sibling?” For that, the suitable approach could be to interview the children as well as their parents alongside with their school teachers as well. The main concept is that the theory of how children cope emerges from the descriptions of those experiencing the phenomenon, not from ideas from those who have not. The aim of a grounded theory approach is the generation of theory that comes from, or is “grounded” in, the data.

4. Narrative Inquiry

To know about the interpretation of the meaning of individual’s narrative accounts researches often use the Narrative inquiry in a broader and bigger way. Narrative accounts can be obtained from a number of groups including family, caregivers and patients. The main or the foremost aim of the narrative inquiry is to question and listen to earlier assumptions (Fang, 2020). When children themselves are asked about their experiences, their narrative accounts are often quite different. The same can be said of patients and others in the same room.

Types Of Quantitative Research Method

According to research paper help expert Quantitative research is mainly an explanation of a scientific investigation of phenomena by collecting various kinds of quantitative activity and information of procedure techniques or applied mathematics. It’s mainly aimed at numerical data with the use of mathematical analysis. Now, this is time to discuss the different types of quantitative research methods and their own phenomena.

Survey Research

This is by far the most common and entry level tool to use for any quantitative research. Main important factor of this method is to widely explain the characteristics of a particular group or a bunch of people (Holdener et al. 2020). Cross-sectional and longitudinal are two main kinds of surveys which help in quantitative research analysis. The longitudinal surveys are utilized in medicine and applied sciences to be conducted at various time durations.

Experimental Research

It is basically referring to one or theories. This research is basically called an experiment.  It’s using the scientific method to establish the cause-effect relationship among a group of variables that make up a study. An independent variable can be referred to as the experimental variable that can be applied to the experimental group. A comparison group of participants who are randomly selected and assigned to experimental and control groups.

Correlation Research

This research is mainly used to establish a relationship between two close entities and the impact of one another. This type of research will recognize trends and patterns in data. Cause and effect are not the basis of this type of observational research. Correlational research, sometimes considered as descriptive research with no variables, is manipulated in the study.

Descriptive Research

As the name suggests, it mainly explains the current status of the research in a descriptive manner. The main target of descriptive research is to explain and interpret the current status of people, conditions, events, or settings (Atumanya et al. 2020). A systematic assortment of data needs careful selection of the units and measurement of every variable. In descriptive research, the researcher does not usually begin with the hypothesis.

Causal-Comparative Research

This type of research is employed to conclude the cause-effect equation between two or more variables and the effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable are measured. Causal-Comparative research is a method that works on the process of comparison. Examples of this type of research include the effect of preschool attendance on social maturity at the end of the first grade, the impact of drugs on a teenager.

Use Of Qualitative Research Method In Nursing

The qualitative research basically collects and analyzes the data for getting better about the concept, opinion and experience. The qualitative research method involves non-numeric data collected after questioning or having conversation with the patient about their health and their requirements along with opinion. Qualitative research helps in determination of subject’s preference (Snyder, 2019). Qualitative research in healthcare and especially in nursing plays a significant role which aims in identifying the requirement of the patients. The experience of the patients matters the most for the growth of the healthcare units and the requirement of the patients is fulfilled mostly by the nursing facilities of the healthcare units. Thus, the qualitative research methods used plays an important role in improving the nursing services for the patients by providing adequate data for knowing the patients. The qualitative research supports the continuous improvement through the collection of data and therefore interpretation of patients’ perspective or requirement (Squires and Dorsen, 2018). Qualitative research is important for interacting with the patients and at the same time interacting with patients is an important part of nursing to understand the patients and help to make them feel comfortable in the healthcare environment. The uses of the qualitative research method in the following situation of nursing are examined below and to know more about qualitative research method in nursing students can take help from SourceEssay diploma of nursing experts online.

• When research questions need to be sharpened

With the use of qualitative research, the individual involved in the nursing gets the rough idea about what information or data is required for better understanding of the patients and at the same time what process is significant for collecting the data.  The qualitative research focuses on the issues faced by the patient and what experience the patient has received in the past (Kyngäs, 2020). The qualitative research helps the nurse to understand the problem or issues faced by the patients. Understanding the issue helps the nurse in solving the problem and therefore providing a better solution to that problem. The research creates designs to further understand patients’ requirements.

• When need detailed description of an issue

The qualitative research helps the individual involved in the nursing process to understand the complex issue. As the simple statistic or numerical data shows what is happening but it fails to show why it is happening. At this time the qualitative research methods help the individual of the nursing profession to understand the patients by socially interacting with the patients. Thus, exploring and examining the social condition along with explaining them in detail is the main aspect of the qualitative research which is a basic requirement of the people in the nursing services. Additionally it provides a detailed perspective about the barriers which resisted patients from getting better services and therefore improving the services of nursing.

The qualitative research is based on three methods: In-depth interview, Focus group discussion and observation.

In-depth interviews help the individual in the nursing services by yielding plenty of data which provides new insight to the nursing individuals for giving better services to the patients. It is also based on the face to face interaction which is needed for better understanding of the issue and servicing better with respect to the requirement. Therefore, it allows in depth understanding with the help of the conversation about the experience and the conditions of the patients (Gibbon and Crane, 2018). The method helps in capturing both affective and cognitive aspects of nursing processes. Thus, this opportunity helps to clarify or get a proper explanation about the topic for getting or having better response from the patients. Thus, an in-depth interview is helpful for the nursing individuals to have a better understanding about the need or condition of the patients for serving better.

Focus group discussion method helps in identifying the problem as well as defining the problem. This method helps in pre-testing ideas after having a discussion with the other co-nursing professionals. The method helps the individual of the nursing to identify the issues and the strength, weakness as well as recommendation for the solving the same with the help of the focused group discussions. The individuals in the nursing profession get the help of this method by interpreting the qualitative findings by learning patients’ thoughts or impact on certain topics or issues faced by them in the past. Thus, the overall benefits of the methods in the improvement of the nursing services have been assessed by generating new ideas to examine patients.

Observation: The observation of the situation allows the nursing individuals to understand or collect first hand data to understand the tale of an ongoing situation or problem (Mohajan, 2018). Adequate observation helps in gathering information about the patient’s behavior or its conditions. This method is useful even when the patient is not ready to cooperate with the professional, where the other method fails; the method of observation helps the nursing professional to understand the patient’s needs or conditions.

Use Of Quantitative Research Method In Nursing

The quantitative research represents the basic requirements of nursing care to encounter patients carefully to maintain patient safety. In this matter it has been stated that there are multiple types of quantitative research methods.

• Survey research

It is the most effective tool in nursing and health care treatment by which all quantitative outcomes, studies and research methodology can be evaluated. Survey in the whole nursing procedure can ask questions to sampling the respondents, online survey, online polls, web intercept surveys and paper questionnaires. In nursing procedures, health care organizations are highly intended to understand the thoughts of the patient based on their health care and service. In order to form a research survey, the health care and nursing sector may require data from patient polls to analyze the collected data to produce numeric results. In this way research survey can step forward to collect data. According to this collected data can conduct specific group of patient for comparative analysis (Atay and Cura, 2020). Additionally, it can select random members through sample of respondent based on prerequisite research.  In addition to this a huge variety of respondents can be addressed by using random selection by which researchers can easily maintain the accuracy of the obtained results. It has been found that via phone call or face to face meeting was the traditional process of research survey which has been drastically changed through online medium such as social media and email. It has been found that cross sectional survey and longitudinal survey are the two effective types of research surveys. To know more about survey research take assistance from SourceEssay online assignment help Brisbane experts.

• Correlational research

In order to establish a relationship between two closely knit entities by which one impacts the other, correlational research can conduct an initial change which can be observed eventually (Mathad et al. 2019). In healthcare and nursing treatment this research method can give potential to occurring relationship naturally. In order to conduct quantitative research methods successfully there are minimum two different groups required.  In addition to this, relationship between two groups or entities can be established without assuming various aspects in the nursing care treatment. It has been found that using mathematical analysis method quantitative research can design correlation of two or more variables by the researchers (Pishgooie et al. 2019). In this regard, the original set up of quantitative research has concluded the existence of pattern, relationship and trends between variables. In the nursing care strategy the impact of these variables can change the relationship which can be manipulated by the researchers in order to attain the desired result.

• Causal comparative research

It has been found in the nursing care treatment that one variable is dependent on another independent variable. In this matter, researchers have used the quantitative research method to conclude the cause effect equation of two or more variables. On the other hand, the factor of comparison includes the method of this research which is also called quasi- experimental research. Apart from this, the impact of dependent variables is observed by the independent variable of nursing care treatment which is established instead of being manipulated (Hasani et al. 2018). On the other hand, the natural set up of nursing strategy has included the existence of groups or variables which must be formed. In this matter it has been found that the survey is carefully established by keeping all the factors in mind as the dependent and independent variables will always exist in a group. Therefore, it extends to analyze how various groups or variables change under the influence of the same causal comparative research of nursing care which is not restricted to the statistical analysis of two variables (Li et al. 2019). The relation between two or more variables exists which is conducted by this research. Using this quantitative research method the researchers can obtain the outcome which is distinctly presented through statistical analysis.

• Experimental research

According to make my assignment experts this research is also known as true experimentation in nursing care. It has been found that this research method lies on a theory. In addition, based on one or more theories, experimental research can be suggested.  It can be stated that in the past, this theory has not been proven which merely a supposition is. The analysis can be done on the basis of proving and disproving the statement through experimental research.  In natural science this research method has been used (Flannelly et al. 2018). In addition to this it has been found that modern techniques are not that effective than the traditional research methods in nursing care. It has been found in nursing strategy that multiple theories can be included in the experimental research where it can be verified or refuted as a statement based on this theory. Efforts and statements are made to understand whether it is valid or invalid to establish the statement of this research. It has been found that there are various statements which need to be proved right or wrong as social or natural science gets represented through using this type of quantitative research method in nursing care.

Conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded that all of the quantitative as well as qualitative methods are useful for managing research process in nursing and healthcare field. Throughout the discussion, different aspects of applying the research methods are discussed in a neat way and from this point of view, it is clear that application of the methods properly can help to derive the best outcomes.

Reference list

Ahlstedt, C., Lindvall, C.E., Holmström, I.K. and Athlin, Å.M., 2019. What makes registered nurses remain in work? An ethnographic study. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 89, pp.32-38.

Atashzadeh Shoorideh, F., Pazargadi, M. and Zagheri Tafreshi, M., 2020. The concept of nursing care quality from the perspective of stakeholders: a phenomenological study. Journal of Qualitative Research in Health Sciences, 1(3), pp.214-228.

Atay, S. and Cura, S.Ü., 2020. Problems encountered by nurses due to the use of personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic: results of a survey. Wound Manag Prev, pp.12-16.

Atumanya, P., Sendagire, C., Wabule, A., Mukisa, J., Ssemogerere, L., Kwizera, A. and Agaba, P.K., 2020. Assessment of the current capacity of intensive care units in Uganda; A descriptive study. Journal of critical care, 55, pp.95-99.

Fang, N., 2020. Imaginal dialogue as a method of narrative inquiry. Narrative Inquiry, 30(1), pp.41-58.

Flannelly, K.J., Flannelly, L.T. and Jankowski, K.R., 2018. Threats to the internal validity of experimental and quasi-experimental research in healthcare. Journal of health care chaplaincy, 24(3), pp.107-130.

Gibbon, B. and Crane, J., 2018. The impact of ‘missed care’on the professional socialisation of nursing students: A qualitative research study. Nurse education today, 66, pp.19-24.

Hasani, J., Alipour, F., Abdorahimi, L., Bodaghi, E., Saeedpour, S. and Bodaghi, M., 2018. Comparative Study of Defensive Styles in Diabetic and Non-diabetics Patients. Journal of Diabetes Nursing, 6(1), pp.408-419.

Holdener, M., Gut, A. and Angerer, A., 2020. Applicability of the user engagement scale to mobile health: a survey-based quantitative study. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 8(1), p.e13244.

Kyngäs, H., 2020. Qualitative research and content analysis. In The application of content analysis in nursing science research (pp. 3-11). Springer, Cham.

Li, S., Ye, X. and Chen, W., 2019. Practice and effectiveness of “nursing case-based learning” course on nursing student’s critical thinking ability: a comparative study. Nurse education in practice, 36, pp.91-96.

Mathad, M.D., Rajesh, S.K. and Pradhan, B., 2019. Spiritual well-being and its relationship with mindfulness, self-compassion and satisfaction with life in baccalaureate nursing students: a correlation study. Journal of religion and health, 58(2), pp.554-565.

Mohajan, H.K., 2018. Qualitative research methodology in social sciences and related subjects. Journal of Economic Development, Environment and People, 7(1), pp.23-48.

Pishgooie, A.H., Atashzadeh‐Shoorideh, F., Falcó‐Pegueroles, A. and Lotfi, Z., 2019. Correlation between nursing managers’ leadership styles and nurses’ job stress and anticipated turnover. Journal of Nursing Management, 27(3), pp.527-534.

Snyder, H., 2019. Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines. Journal of business research, 104, pp.333-339.

Squires, A. and Dorsen, C., 2018. Qualitative research in nursing and health professions regulation. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 9(3), pp.15-26.

What are the method of data collection in nursing?

What is quantitative research used for in nursing?

What is the best research method for nursing?

What type of research is used in nursing?