There are different types of quantitative research designs that justify or support themselves in nursing research. Choose one quantitative type design and identify a major advantage and a major disadvantage of this design. Give an example how this quantitative research design could be used in nursing practice to solve a clinical problem (not one noted in your textbook). Purchase the answer to view it
Introduction
Quantitative research plays a critical role in expanding the knowledge and understanding of various phenomena in nursing practice. There is a wide range of quantitative research designs available to nurse researchers, each with its own unique advantages and disadvantages. In this assignment, we will focus on the experimental design, one of the most commonly used quantitative research designs. We will explore the major advantage and disadvantage of this design and provide an example of how it can be utilized in nursing practice to address a clinical problem.
Experimental Design: Major Advantage
The experimental design is characterized by its ability to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between variables. It involves the manipulation of an independent variable to observe its effect on a dependent variable, while controlling for potential confounding factors. The major advantage of this design lies in its ability to provide high internal validity.
Internal validity refers to the extent to which a research study accurately measures the relationship between variables without the influence of extraneous variables (Polit & Beck, 2017). The experimental design achieves high internal validity through its rigorous control over confounding variables. By randomly assigning participants to experimental and control groups, researchers can ensure that any observed differences in the dependent variable result from the manipulation of the independent variable, rather than other factors. This control enhances the researcher’s confidence in establishing a causal relationship between the variables under investigation.
Experimental Design: Major Disadvantage
While the experimental design offers high internal validity, it is not without its limitations. One notable disadvantage of this design is its lack of external validity, also known as generalizability or applicability to real-world settings. External validity refers to the extent to which the findings of a research study can be generalized to the population of interest or other settings (Polit & Beck, 2017).
The experimental design often occurs in highly controlled laboratory settings, with strict inclusion and exclusion criteria. Consequently, the findings may not accurately reflect the complexities and variations that exist in real-world clinical practice. Additionally, the strict control over variables in experimental research limits the generalizability of the findings to other populations or settings. This limitation hampers the ability to make broad assertions or recommendations based solely on experimental studies.
Example of Experimental Design in Nursing Practice
To illustrate how the experimental design can be applied to solve a clinical problem in nursing practice, let us consider the following example:
Clinical Problem: Many elderly patients in long-term care facilities suffer from sleep disturbances, leading to adverse health outcomes such as increased falls and cognitive decline. Despite various interventions being used to improve sleep quality, the effectiveness of these interventions remains uncertain.
Experimental Design Application: A nurse researcher interested in addressing this clinical problem may design an experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of a sleep hygiene intervention on improving sleep quality among elderly residents in long-term care facilities. The study would involve randomly assigning participants to either the intervention group, where they receive the sleep hygiene intervention, or the control group, where they receive standard care. Sleep quality measurements would be assessed before and after the intervention using objective measures, such as actigraphy, and subjective measures, such as sleep quality questionnaires.
Advantage: The experimental design allows the researcher to control for confounding variables, such as medication use or co-existing medical conditions, which may influence sleep quality. The rigorous control over these variables enhances the internal validity of the study, providing a strong basis for establishing the cause-and-effect relationship between the sleep hygiene intervention and improved sleep quality.
Disadvantage: However, the external validity of the study may be limited, as it is conducted in a controlled setting of long-term care facilities and may not fully capture the complexities and variations that exist in other healthcare settings or with diverse populations of elderly patients.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the experimental design offers the advantage of high internal validity by establishing cause-and-effect relationships between variables. However, it also has the disadvantage of limited external validity, limiting its generalizability to real-world settings. Despite this limitation, the experimental design can be effectively applied in nursing practice to address clinical problems, as demonstrated in our example of examining the effectiveness of a sleep hygiene intervention in improving sleep quality among elderly residents in long-term care facilities. Nurse researchers must carefully consider the advantages and limitations of the experimental design when selecting it as their research approach.