Mastering Nursing Research: Key Concepts and Methods
Scale Development & Validity
A nurse researcher developed a new 10-item scale to measure resilience. – Internal consistency
A nurse researcher developed a new scale to measure cigarette consumption – Criterion validity
A nurse researcher developed a new scale to measure preparedness for caregiving – Content validity
A nurse researcher developed a new scale to measure the self-care behaviors of adults with type 2 diabetes. – Construct validity
Research Studies & Designs
A nurse researcher is studying medication compliance in hypertensive patients. – Sampling bias
A nurse researcher is studying the attitudes of high school students – Cross-sectional study
A nurse researcher is studying the culture of the emergency department – Autoethnography
A nurse researcher studied adults’ intentions to donate blood – Social Cognitive Theory
A nurse researcher studied how a woman’s practice of breast self-exam – The Health Belief Model
A nurse researcher tested two different head-of-bed elevations – Crossover design
A researcher collected cross-sectional data to estimate the percentage of community-dwelling – Prevalence study
A researcher initiated an innovative cigarette cessation intervention – One-group pretest-posttest design
A researcher is studying the relationship between stress and diet among college students. – Quota sampling
A researcher studying interactions among nursing home residents schedules – Time sampling
A sample of both users and nonusers of electronic cigarettes – Prospective study
A team of researchers evaluated a protocol designed to reduce medication errors. – Time-series design
Women with and without lymphedema – Case-control study
An ethnographic study of the culture of an urban family – Focused ethnography
Qualitative Research Approaches
Although qualitative research design is emergent – Identifying personal presuppositions and biases
Critical research differs from traditional qualitative research in its – Goal to be transformative
Grounded theory research seeks to discover – Core variable
Hermeneutics is closely allied with which research tradition? – Phenomenology
In which approach do researchers work in vulnerable communities – Participatory action research
The terms “content analysis” and “thematic analysis” – Descriptive qualitative research
Which is a prominent theoretical underpinning of grounded theory? – Symbolic interactionism
Which is not a type of research with an ideological perspective? – Constructivist grounded theory
Which is not an issue that qualitative researchers attend to in planning a study? – Selecting scales to measure key concepts
Which qualitative tradition focuses on the manner – Grounded theory
Which qualitative tradition sometimes involves augmenting research data with “data” – Interpretive phenomenology
Which qualitative tradition would be the foundation for the question: “What social…” – Grounded theory
Which qualitative tradition would most likely be the foundation for the question: “What are the conceptions…” – Ethnography
Which term is used to describe the interpretive process – Hermeneutic circle
Within which qualitative tradition would the question be addressed: “What is the essence of men’s experiences of chemo…” – Phenomenology
Which procedure do grounded theory researchers use to develop and refine – Constant comparison
Quantitative Research Concepts
An important function of research design strategies in a quantitative study – Controlling confounding variables
Four types of validity affect the rigor of a quantitative study – Statistical conclusion validity
Researchers collect data at a single point in time in which type of study? – Cross-sectional studies
Self-efficacy is a widely used construct that was originally developed within – Social Cognitive Theory
Several conceptual models and theories of nursing have been developed – Environment
Simple random sampling is to stratified random sampling – Quota sampling
Strata are incorporated into the design of which sampling approach? – Quota sampling
The Health Promotion Model would best be described – Middle-range theory
The use of randomization for assigning participants to conditions eliminates – Systematic bias
There are four types of validity that affect the rigor – Internal validity
There are several alternative strategies for controlling – Randomizing participants to conditions
Using homogeneity as a strategy for controlling confounding variables – External validity
What is the discipline concerned with the theory and methods – Psychometrics
What procedure do researchers use to estimate how large a sample they need? – Power analysis
Which design question is relevant in both quantitative and qualitative studies? – How often will data be collected?
Which is a consequence of having too small a sample? – Insufficient power to detect differences in groups being compared
Which measurement property concerns the extent to which scores for an attribute are free – Reliability
Which nonprobability sampling design would be most likely to yield – Consecutive sampling
Which of the following is a major strength of true experimental? – They permit greater confidence in making causal inferences than other designs
Which of the following is a probability sampling method? – Systematic sampling
Which of the following is a type of core variable in grounded theory? – Basic social process
Which of the following is a type of cultural theory that can help – Materialistic theories
Which of the following statements about measurement is true? – Rules for measuring many health-related constructs have to be invented
Which of the following statements about using theory in quantitative studies – Theories are often not tested directly in a study but rather are used as an organizing structure
Which of the following techniques do ethnographers use in studying a culture? – Participant observation
Which statement about case studies is true? – A case study design can be cross-sectional or longitudinal
Which statement is true about RCTs? – The control group condition is a proxy for an ideal counterfactual
Which threat to internal validity can emerge – History
Why are interviews usually preferable to questionnaires – Response rates are usually higher
Sampling & Research Procedures
In the context of a study, what is sampling? – Selecting a subset of the population to represent the entire population
When an observer is not concealed, the observational data – Reactivity
What is the central concern of a critical researcher? – Critique of society and social practices