Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Best Scientific Paper Award 2016

Best Scientific Paper Award
I have presented a scientific paper on "A qualitative study to explore social burden among the wives of alcoholics in tribal area" in a National Conference, conducted by Sree Balaji College of Nursing, Bharath University, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India on 27.06.2016 & 28.06.2016. I have received "Best Paper Award" for my presentation. Thank you very much for your help and support.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Non experimental research

Non experimental research
There are many research problems that can be conducted using experimental or quasi experimental designs. In non experimental research, the independent variable is non-manipulate or unethical to manipulate, however, gives answers for research questions. 

Types of non experimental research
Correlational or Expost facto research has been conducted to study the relationships among variables after variation in the independent variable has occurred. It is designed to assess causal relationship between variables. it is divided into two types; Prospective study and Retrospective study
  • Prospective study
In prospective study, the researcher looks forward to assess the effect and study is started with an examination of presumed cause. For example, the researcher selects samples of chronic alcoholics and non alcoholics and continues assessment for a period of time and later assesses the effect.
  • Retrospective study
In retrospective study, the researcher observed at the effect of present and looks on to past history of the samples to collect and compare antecedent factors that have caused it.
Another class of non experimental research is descriptive research. The purpose of descriptive research studies is to observe, describe and document aspects of a situation. The researcher uses percentages or proportions to present the results. In descriptive correlational study, the researcher describes relationships among variables, but not causal connection.
Disadvantages of non experimental research
The major disadvantage is its inability to reveal casual relationships conclusively. It may be having false interpretation because the researcher works with known groups.

Quasi experimental research

Quasi experimental research
It involves manipulation of an independent variable, lacks either the randomization or control group features.
Types
There are two types most commonly used in nursing research;
1. Non equivalent control group design
2. Time series design
  • Non equivalent control group design
It involves a treatment and two or more groups of subjects observed before and after its implementation. This design is useful, where the researcher is not able to do randomization due to unavoidable ethical reasons. This design is weak without randomization. On the other hand, the design is strong due to collection of pretest data allows us to determine whether the groups had similar morale initially by collecting pretest data, if the two groups are comparable with regard to demographic variables, the researcher could be relatively confident that any post test difference is self reported morale was the result of experimental treatment.
  • Time series design
It involves the collection of data over an extended time period and introduction of treatment during that period. The researcher is able to collect measures of outcome variables before the intervention, during the intervention, after a period of intervention and so on.
Advantages of quasi experimental research
It seems to be more practical than the experimental designs. Nursing researchers conduct studies in natural settings, where it is unethical to deliver an innovative treatment to a cluster of people through randomization.
Disadvantages of quasi experimental research
With these types of experiments, there are alternative explanations for observed results. A researcher wants to evaluate the effectiveness of weight gain among infants, if there is no comparison group to observe weight gain, one can easily ask question that: Is the weight gain among infants would have occurred without intervention? These types of questions called as rival hypothesis. If the answer is yes, inferences about treatment effectiveness are weakened.
In research reports, the researcher does not mention regarding random assignment or comparison group, probably it is safe to conclude that the design is quasi experimental and pre experimental.

Experimental Research

Experimental Research
In experimental research, the researcher is an active agent rather than a passive observer. To do an experimental research, the researcher has to follow these principles such as
1. Manipulation
2. Control
3. Randomization
  • Manipulation
It means the researcher intervenes something in the group and analyze the outcome. In other words, the researcher varies the independent variable by administering an intervention or treatment and analyzes its effects on the dependent variable. For example, the researcher analyzes the level of knowledge (dependent variable) before and after video teaching programme (intervention).
  • Using control group
Control group refers to a group of participants whose performance on dependent variable is used as a basis for evaluating the performance of the experimental group (a group which receives intervention) on the same dependent variable. The researcher keeps the control group (a group with no intervention or administers an alternative or false intervention such as placebo) parallel to experimental group. For example, to evaluate the effectiveness of nutritional supplements, the researcher divides the newborns into two groups with different mode of strategies.
Strategy I: A group of newborns receiving nutritional supplements daily (experimental group) and other group without any nutritional supplements (control group).
Strategy II: A group of newborns receiving nutritional supplements daily (experimental group) and other group with alternatives to nutritional supplements such as glucose powder called a group with placebo intervention (control group).
  • Randomization
Randomization means the researcher randomly select the participants in the study without any bias. Through randomization, the every participant gets an equal chance to participate in the study. The methods of randomization may vary from flipping a coin to computerized randomization method.

Experimental designs
Basic Designs

The researcher assigns the subjects randomly into experimental and control group, intervenes the intervention in the experimental group and collects the data after intervention from experimental and control group. This is also called as after only or post test only design. In another way, the researcher collects the information from experimental and control group before and after intervention is called as before-after design or pretest-post test design.
Factorial design
Factorial Design
In factorial design, the researchers manipulate two or more variables together on the study subjects and evaluate the main effects and also interaction effects. Here, the subjects are assigned at random to a combination of treatments. The term cell represents in a schematic diagram as a box. The independent variables are referred to as factors. Each factor is exposing in different levels. For example, a study to assess the effectiveness of supplementary feeding versus normal feeding among toddlers on weight gain. Here, the researcher designs the study on 2×2 table with two factors such as type of feeding A (Supplementary feeding (A1) and normal feeding (A2) and frequency of feeding B one time/day (B1) and two times per day (B2). The researchers assign the toddlers randomly to one of the cells, which consist of combination of treatments. The results will show the best mode of feeding and also the interaction effects resulting from the combination of treatment methods.
Repeated measures design/ Cross over design
The researchers intervene two or more interventions among the same subjects called within subjects design or cross over design. It involves the exposure of the same study participants to more than one treatment. The study subjects are randomly assigned to receive different ordering of treatment. For example, to compare the effects of auditory and tactile stimulation on infants, some subjects would like to randomly assign to receive auditory stimulation first and others would receive tactile stimulation first with the subjects serving as their own control group.  It prevents participant bias by achieving possible equivalence among subjects exposed to different conditions. There is an expected disadvantage of carryover effects of first treatment among study participants. When the researcher introduces two or more treatments and intervenes the treatments in the randomized order is called as experimental repeated measures design.
Clinical trials
The researcher evaluates the effectiveness of new treatment through a randomized clinical trial. It involves the testing of a clinical treatment, random assignment of subjects to experimental and control groups and assesses the effectiveness of treatment. Clinical trials can be done using before – after or after only design.
Advantages of experiments
These are the most powerful designs for testing hypothesis of cause and effect relationships. It also meets the criteria of causality, by Lazarsfield (1955).
1. A cause must precede an effect in time. For example, to test the hypothesis- smoking causes lung cancer; subjects should not have developed cancer before exposure to smoking.
2. There must be an empirical relationship between the presumed cause and effect. For example, in case of smoking and lung cancer, the researcher should collect the evidences regarding higher incidence of lung cancer is directly related to occurrence of smoking.
3. The relationship of presumed cause and effect should not affect by a third variable. For example, a relationship between smoking and lung cancer might reflect an underlying causal relationship between prolonged dust exposure and lung cancer.
Through manipulation, presence of control groups and randomization, an alternative explanation to a causal interpretation can be ruled out.
Disadvantages of experiments
All variables can not be manipulated such as race, ethnicity and history of diseases.
There are many variables, which can not be manipulated ethically. For example, withdrawal of vaccines from control group to test the effectiveness of vaccines in experimental and control group.
Hawthorne effect- Awareness of being in a study may alter the participant’s behavior, which affects the study results.
Double hawthorne effect- Those who administer the treatment know the subjects who are in experimental and control group; alters the study results. In a double blind experiment, neither the subjects nor those administering the treatment know who is in the experimental or control group; are so powerful.

Quantitative research designs

Quantitative research designs
Research designs in quantitative approach refer to the researcher’s overall plan for answering the research questions and/or testing the research hypothesis. It guides the researcher to adopt well defined strategies based on the decisions. 

There are some areas the researcher has to look on it before reflecting research design;
-Need of implementing any interventions
-Need of compare groups
-Need of control factors extraneous to research
-Need of collecting data at different time periods
-The nature of setting, in which the study takes place.

The researcher has to select an appropriate design based on dimensions of research question.
  • Dimension; Control over independent variables
Appropriate designs are;
Experimental–manipulation of independent variables, control group and randomization
Quasi experimental –manipulation of independent variables but no randomization or control group
Non experimental –no manipulation of independent variables
  • Dimension –Type of group comparisons
Appropriate designs are;
Between subjects –participants in groups being compared are different people
Within subjects –participants in groups being compared are the same people
  • Dimension –Number of data collection points
Appropriate designs are;
Cross sectional design- one time data collection
Longitudinal design- multiple points data collection
  • Dimension –Occurrence of independent and dependent variables
Appropriate designs are;
Retrospective – a study begins with dependent variable and looks the past for a cause
Prospective –study begins with independent variables and looks forward to identify the effect
  • Dimension –Setting
Appropriate designs are;
Naturalistic-data collected in real world setting
Laboratory – data collected in artificial setting