Qualitative research

Qualitative research
Qualitative research is a process of putting data together from many sources in an effort to arrive at a holistic understanding of a phenomenon.

A qualitative design;

• is flexible and elastic
• can combine various data collection strategies
• strives to understand the whole
• requires ongoing analysis of the data formulate strategies

Preparation for a qualitative research

A researcher has to prepare themselves for conducting qualitative research in advance;

• Selection of title of the study or problem to be studied
• Plan design and data collection methods
• Select the setting and decide the nature of the participants
• Identify the ‘gate keepers’ who can provide access to important sources of data
• Determine time, money and resources availability for data collection

Phases in a qualitative study
The researcher conducts a qualitative study in three phases: orientation phase, exploration phase and confirmation phase.

• Orientation phase

The qualitative researcher enters into a study ‘not knowing what is not known’ that will make the researcher to drive forward.

• Exploration phase

The researcher explores the different aspects of the phenomenon. The questions to be asked to participants are shaped by the researcher.

• Confirmation phase

To confirm their findings trustworthy, the researcher often goes back and discusses their understanding with the study participants. 

Types of data collection strategies
The data collection strategies can be cross sectional or longitudinal. In cross sectional research, the data collection will be conducted at one point of time. In longitudinal research, the researcher conducts multiple data collection points over an extended time period.

Setting for qualitative research study
The qualitative researchers prefer natural setting to collect data; however, they conduct study in a variety of natural contexts to study phenomena extensively. 

Major types of qualitative research studies
The qualitative research traditions derived mainly from anthropology (culture), philosophy (lived experience), psychology (behavior), sociology (socially related) and socio linguistics (human communication). The major traditions which the qualitative researchers followed are;

• Ethnography
• Phenomenology
• Grounded theory

Ethnography
This research tradition focuses on the culture of a group of people. The main objective is to learn about a specific culture. The ethnographic researchers should use either one of perspectives; emic perspective or etic perspective. An emic perspective is the view of the culture as an insider or member of the community. An etic perspective is the view of the culture by an outsider. However, the ethnographers focus to acquire from emic perspectives. Some cultural experience is deeply embedded and members may not consciously aware of it. In this scenario, the researcher use ‘tactic knowledge’ to acquire information about the culture. Ethnography is time consuming and may take several months to get overall understanding of a culture. The researchers have to actively participated in a cultural group to develop intimacy with them. The ethnographers strive to acquire three types of information:

• Cultural behavior (What members do?)
• Cultural artifacts (What members do make and use?)
• Cultural speech (What people say?)

These study results provide an insight on health belief and practices.
The ethnography can be divided into two:

• Macro ethnography; study on culture broadly, for example: culture of a village
• Micro ethnography; study on culture which is narrowly defined, for example: culture of a tribal women.

Phenomenology
This approach strives to explore about people’s life experiences. The researcher conducts an enquiry regarding the experiences by the people in a given phenomena. The phenomenologist investigates subjective phenomena in the belief that reality is grounded in people’ lived experiences. There are two aspects of phenomenology: descriptive and interpretive phenomenology. In descriptive phenomenology, the researcher explores what people experience in regards to a phenomenon. In interpretive phenomenology, the researcher investigates how they interpret those experiences. The investigators believed that lived experience gives an idea to each person’s perception of a particular phenomenon. The phenomenologists are interested in four aspects of lived experience: lived space/spatiality, lived body/ corpeality, lived time/temporality and lived human relation/relationality.
In a phenomenologic study, the main data source is in depth conversations with the researcher and informant as participants. The researcher facilitates the informants to describe lived experience in a series of interview sessions. The sample size can be limited from 10 to 20, based on attaining of data saturation. The other data collection methods in phenomenology are participation, observation and introspective reflection.
The data analysis involves the following steps; bracketing, intuiting, analyzing and describing. Bracketing refers to the process of identifying and holding in abeyance pre conceived beliefs and opinions about the phenomena under study. Intuiting occurs when the researcher remains open to the meaning attributed to the phenomenon by those who have experienced it. Then, the researcher can proceed to analysis phase includes extracting significant statements, categorizing and making sense of the essential meaning of the phenomenon. Finally, the researcher defines the phenomenon with quotes.

Grounded theory
The grounded theory roots on social interaction and the interpretation they attach to social symbols like language. It is the study of social process and social structures. It explains the social and psychological stages that characterize a particular event. It also generates comprehensive explanation of phenomena that are grounded in reality. During data collection, the research questions are emerged from the data. The data collection, data analysis and sampling of participants occur simultaneously. A procedure referred to as constant comparison is used to develop and refine theoretically relevant categories and to identify the basic problems. The categories are compared with data so that commonalities and variations can be determined. In depth interviews and observation methods can be used for data collection. Typically, a grounded theory study involves interviews with a sample of about 20-50 informants.

Techniques of research control

Techniques of research control
Research control eliminates the influences of extraneous variables in the study so that true relationship between the independent and dependent variables can be understood. It excludes the contaminating factors that might affect the relationship between the variables. For example, the researcher wants to study depression among post partum women; the dependent variable is level of depression and independent variable is past partum women. There are other possibilities which affect the level of depression among post partum women such as age, socio economic status and marital status. If a researcher wants to study true relationship between independent and dependent variable, the extraneous variable has to be controlled. The extraneous factors can be divided into two;

• External factors
• Internal factors

Control of external factors
The external factors to be controlled in research are environment, time, culture and so on. To control the environmental influence on data collection, the researcher has to select the environment in natural or artificial setting according to the problem to be studied. Depending on the research topic, the relationship between dependent and independent variable may be influenced by the time of day, month and year. In these cases, the researcher should ensure the constancy of time during data collection.
Control of internal factors
Controlling internal factors such as gender, hereditary is doubtful in research. There are a few methods formulated o control subject characteristics to protect the research topic from the contamination of extraneous variables.
Methods are;

• Randomization
• Homogeneity
• Matching

Randomization
It means the selection of participants randomly, without any conscious decisions by the researcher. Randomization of study participants controls all possible sources of extraneous variables. For example, random assignment of subjects to experimental and control group would equalize the distribution of variables such as age, gender and neutralizes the influences of extraneous variables.
Homogeneity
When randomization is not feasible, the researcher can select the subjects who are homogenous with respect to extraneous variables are included in the study. Homogeneity means the researcher selects the study participants based on important extraneous variables such as specific age group, gender, education and so on. The main limitation of the homogeneity is that results of the study can be generalized only to the type of subjects participated.
Matching
During case control study, the researcher selects the study participants based on relevant extraneous variables and randomly divided into case control groups. This technique used to form comparable groups in case control design.

Classification of research design based on purpose

Classification of research design based on purpose
Survey research
The researcher collects the data regarding incidence, prevalence and distribution of variables of with in population through survey. The survey reports are based on self reports and respondents answer to the questions raised by the researcher. The common method for data collection is personal, face to face interview, interview by telephone and self administered questionnaire. The survey research is suitable for extensive data collection among large population and can focus on wide range of topics at a time.
Evaluation research
It helps to evaluate a process, program, treatment or policy. It can be cross sectional, longitudinal or experimental/non experimental. Based on the aim of evaluation, it can be classified into three;

1. Process analysis
2. Outcome analysis
3. Impact analysis

• Process analysis

A process analysis evaluates the process of implementing a new program or procedure and assesses the functioning in actual situation.

• Outcome analysis

An outcome analysis evaluates the final goals of the program, which are achieved after an implementation of program or process.

• Impact analysis

Impact analysis evaluates the net effects or impacts of the program after implementation of program or process.
Outcome research
Outcome research evaluates the effectiveness of health care services in an organization. This research conducts usually as part of global assessment. This types of assessment helps to appraise and document the quality of nursing care in an organization.

Classification of research design based on time dimension

Classification of research design based on time dimension
The designs can be classified based on when and how often data will be collected in a study. The data can be collected at a single point in time or more than one occasion. 

There are four situations in which it is a appropriate to design a study with multiple points of data collection.
1. Time related process- Depends on how phenomena evolved over time, for example, wound healing process.
2. Time sequenced phenomena- It is very important to ascertain the sequencing of phenomena. For example, the researcher has to make sure that pregnancy contributes to diabetes mellitus and not diabetes mellitus precedes pregnancy.
3. Comparative purposes- Here, multiple data points are used to compare phenomena over time.
4. Enhancement of research control- The researcher collects data at multiple points to enhance the interpretability of the results. For example, the collection of pre test data with demographic variables allows the researcher to detect for initial group difference. 

Cross sectional design
The researchers collect the data at one point in time and describe the status of phenomena or relationships among phenomena. For example, the researchers assess the level of depression among post partum women and test the relationship between independent (age, socio economic status and level of education) and dependent variables (level of depression). Advantages of cross sectional designs are economical and easy to conduct the studies for the researcher. A major disadvantage of conducting a cross sectional study is that problems arise when society changes rapidly. The researcher can not generalize the cross sectional study findings to a rapid changing society.
Longitudinal design
In this design, the researcher collects the data over an extended time period, identifies changes over time and sequence phenomena like a chain, which is an essential to establish causality.
Longitudinal studies are three types;

1. Trend studies
2. Panel studies
3. Follow up studies

Trend studies
Trend studies help the researcher to collect the data by drawing samples from general population over time with respect to a phenomenon. The researcher draws different samples from same population at repeated intervals, examines the changes at present and makes predictions about future. Foe example,predicting nursing shortage in coming years.
Panel studies
The researcher collects the data from the same participants at different period of time. With the same participants, the researcher examines the changes and identify the reasons fro change. The major problem with the panel studies are subject attrition. Subject attrition is defined as dropping of study participants during the study.
Follow up studies
In follow up studies, the researcher collects the data subsequently, especially after an intervention. In non experimental studies, the sample may be followed periodically to assess the changes in the variables. For example, weight gain among premature infants.

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.

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.