For this assignment, find two research articles related to the PICOT questions from week 2 (HOURLY ROUNDING AND FALL PREVENTION).The articles must be current, published within the last 5 years and related to nursing research. One article must be quantitative and one article must be qualitative. You must use different articles than the week 4 assignment. Articles should be original research articles. Review articles, meta-analysis, meta-synthesis, and systemic review should not be used. Mixed-methods studies should not be used. A graduate dissertation is also not appropriate.

Part 1: Download and complete a Rapid Critical Appraisal Checklist/Comparison. The first column is for the quantitative article and the second column is for the qualitative article.

Part 2: Write one summary (1-2 pages) in APA format describing the similarities and differences among the research articles. Remember we are focusing on research methods and designs here. Submit summary and checklist/comparison in Blackboard with articles.

Rapid Critical Appraisal Comparisons

APA Style Reference

Put article reference in APA format
Purpose Statement

What is the purpose of the research?
The researchers should clearly state the purpose, aim, or objective of the research.
Setting

The setting includes where the study took place, the date the research was conducted, how were participants were identified for research.
Country/location should include the country and then the type of setting, a teaching hospital, rural clinics, etc.
Date of study is when the research was conducted, not when the article was written.
Sample

How many total participants were included.
Who is included in the sample?
What were the inclusion/exclusion criteria?
Quantitative research may include randomization.
Was there randomization?
How were participants randomized into groups?
How many were in each group?
Data Collection

Describe how data was collected in each study. This relates to the research design
For quantitative research, there could be surveys, questionnaires, observations, or scales, or physiological measures.
Was the time of the data collection longitudinal, retrospective, cross-sectional
What data collection tools were used?
For qualitative research, was data collected by observation, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups
Were notes taken, was audio/visual recording done
Data Analysis

How was data analyzed?
For quantitative research, data analysis involves statistical analysis.
Usually descriptive statistics are used to describe the sample.
Researchers will describe what statistical analysis was completed. This could be any number of statistical tests including correlational analysis, regressive statistics, inferential statistics, etc. What are some of the statistical tests the researchers used?
For qualitative research, there may be some descriptive statistics used to describe the sample. But most qualitative data analysis usually involves some type of coding and looking for themes. This may be done via computer or by the researchers. Describe how data was analyzed in the qualitative research.
Methodology (Research Design)

Methodology refers to the research design, how research is collected, how it is analyzed, the reliability and validity, the sampling methods, etc.
Most of those topics are discussed in another box of this comparison so here please describe the sampling method and the research design used.
For quantitative research, remember there are three categories of research designs: experimental, quasi-experimental, and non-experimental
What specific research design was used for the quantitative article? Was it an experimental, quasi-experimental, or non-experimental design?
For the qualitative research, what specific research design was used?
For sampling method, decide if it is a probability or non-probability sampling method. Which method probability or non-probability method is used?
Remember quantitative research can use either probability or non-probability sampling methods.
Qualitative research generally uses non-probability sampling methods.
Hypothesis/Research Question

Sometimes researchers do not give their research question or hypothesis. Do not make one up if it is not given.
If no research question or hypothesis is given, state what the researchers give for the purpose, aim, or objective of the research.
Remember qualitative research does not generally start with a hypothesis.
Variables

Remember generally, qualitative research does not have independent or dependent variables so this section is not applicable for qualitative research
For quantitative research, what are the independent variable(s) and the dependent variable(s)?
The independent variable is the one manipulated by the researcher. It influences the dependent variable.
The dependent variable is the outcome.
In non-experimental research, the variables are not manipulated so are just called research variables.
List each of the variables. How do the researchers define and measure each variable? Do they explain this clearly?
What tools or instruments are used to measure each variable? Tools or instruments could be a scale such as pain scale or Geriatric Depression Scale. They could be a blood pressure cuff. They could be a survey or questionnaire.
Unusual Events and Attrition

What unusual events happened during the research?
Did everyone complete the research?
What was the attrition or drop out rate? To find the attrition rate take the number who did not complete the research divided by the total number of participants who began the study. Multiply this by 100.
Findings (Results)

What were the findings or results of the research? Do not give the sample descriptive statistics. Look back at the research question or aim. What is the answer to the question or what was discovered related to the aim of the research?
Findings are not the same as recommendations.
For qualitative research, what themes developed from the research?
Relevance/Significance to Nursing Practice

What is the relevance or significance of this research to nursing practice?
How is this research applicable to the topic you are interested in?
Summary (1-2 pages)

The summary should describe the similarities and differences in research among the two research articles.
Remember we are focusing on research methods and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of different research. A small piece of what you are asked about is about the findings. This should not be the bulk of what you write about.
In your summary your will want to discuss things like how do the research designs compare and contrast, how do the sampling methods and sizes compare, how do the data collection and data analysis methods compare.
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