Changing a Qualitative Research Into a Quantitative Study Essay

Fry and her colleagues undertook a qualitative research to develop a moral distress model in military nursing. Using the same problem statement, literature analysis and background information, this paper aims at converting the qualitative study carried out by Fry and her colleagues into a quantitative study. The study entails setting different research questions and collecting data that aims at addressing these questions. The process proceeds by a review background information and the problem statement. The final state of the process is formulating a new quantitative study question. Qualitative research problem Moral distress is a critical concern in military nursing considering the harsh and complex environments under which military nurses operate in. Literature has established a conceptualised model of moral distress, which starts with initial moral distress symptoms that leads to reactive distress behaviour which results from the effects of the former. There are various factors that cause the occurrence of moral distress in nursing. Considering the environmental differences of military and civilian nursing practice, it is evident that the prevalence of moral distress varies. Quantitative research purpose The main objective of this quantitative study is to contribute to the knowledge base about military nursing moral distress. The knowledge drawn from the research findings will be informative in designing conceptual models of moral distress in military nursing and developing policies for expediting the problem. Quantitative research question The qualitative research question was: Do military nurses experience the dimensions of the conceptualised moral distress described in the problem statement? In response to this question, Fry and her colleagues established four guiding research objectives. They include identification of moral distress experience among the United States Nurse Corps officers; construction of a moral distress model for moral distress experience among military nurses; development of a valid and reliable tool to measure moral distress in military nursing and the identification of the moral distress dimensions among military nurses. The new research question is: What is the prevalence of moral distress in military nursing? The research objectives associated with the aforementioned quantitative question include: (1) To establish the prevalence of moral distress among the Nurse Corps officers of the United States who have ever participated in the military crisis and (2) to establish the percentage of military nurses to develop reactive moral distress behaviour after suffering initial moral distress. Quantitative research sample The qualitative research sample comprised of 13 United States Army Nurse Corps Officers who have ever been deployed in military crisis zones from 1980 and latter. Seven of the thirteen nurses who took part in the research study were males. Six of them had been deployed in Bosnia, Three in Vietnam and four in the Persian Gulf War. The new study sample will include the retired and current United States military nurses who have ever been deployed in the military crisis zones. The large sample size is essential in identifying an inclusive sample representative of 1500 participants to give a higher validity and reliability of the research findings. Participants will be recruited through random selection of nurses who have ever been deployed to military crisis zones. The use of randomised selection of participants improves the validity of the overall results. Qualitative research limitations The first limitation as seen from the study is the use of snowballing sampling which reduces the validity of the overall findings. The second weakness of qualitative study relates to the sample’s small size. The final research findings of qualitative research lack generalizability due to the small sample size. The third weakness of qualitative research is the long time it takes to gather research data through interviews. The fourth eakness is the difficulties encountered in the analysis of the research data. It is not practical to apply statistical methods and tools in the analysis of qualitative study data. The limitations of the new quantitative research findings include: (1) the logical difficulties of getting a large sample size of 1500 participants; (2) the cost implications. It is costly to carry out a research involving such a large sample size. The third limitation is the inability of quantitative study to capture real sample dynamics that are guaranteed by structured interviews (Creswell, 1999). Qualitative Informed Consent and use of IRB The given study satisfied all the ethical research considerations. The researchers obtained the participant’s informed consent and also upheld the duty of confidentiality. The institutional review boards’ approvals were also sought before commencement of the research (Fry et al. , 2002). In the quantitative research study, ethical research considerations involved obtaining research approval from relevant institutional review boards. The research preamble instructions outlined the duty of confidentiality owed by the researcher to the participants. Participation in the phenomenal research study was also voluntary upon acquisition the consents of the participants. Qualitative Research Design and Philosophical Connectedness (underpinnings) The research design has two phases. The first phase entailed a review of the current literature to establish a conceptual moral distress model. The second phase entailed a structured interview with 13 participants who satisfied the inclusion criteria to collect the required research data. The final research findings were used in validation of the conceptualized moral distress model. The quantitative research employs a phenomenological study of the experiences of the United States military nurses in military crisis deployments. The study will seek to obtain the individual encounters with situations that caused them moral distresses. The research study will also seek to establish the prevalence of reactive moral distress behaviour among the participants that suffered initial moral distresses. The research design will employ a questionnaire for data collection. The questionnaire will contain both open and closed ended questions to collect specific responses from participants and general open-ended views from participants. Quantitative Rigor of the Study Rigor is essential in quantitative research study. It raises the overall significance the research. Reliability and validity are the key dimensions of quantitative research’s rigor (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007). The use of a large sample size and probabilistic recruitment of the research participants increases the external validity of the overall research findings. The researcher should also avoid the research bias in the collection and analysis of the findings to increase the generalizability of the findings. Reliability is the measure of consistency of the research findings. It can be increased by applying similar statistical tools of analysis the results. SPSS is an accurate tool for statistical analysis of quantitative research findings using a uniform degree of freedom. The use of a self-administered questionnaire helps in maintaining anonymity, which give participants the freedom of expressing their genuine views. This is essential in reducing bias and increasing the overall validity and reliability of the research findings. The researcher should admit only completed questionnaires for final research analysis to ensure high validity and reliability of the study findings. This underpins the essence of recruiting a higher number of research participants to guarantee a high number of valid responses from the participants for analysis. Advantages of Qualitative research The main advantages of qualitative research include: (1) In-depth research of a phenomena through structured interviews and observation; (2) Flexibility of the research method to accommodate undefined variables; (3) Ability to capture the whole research information and scenes through tape recording and (4) it allows the researcher to note only relevant responses for analysis (Rubin & Babbie, 2009). Disadvantages of qualitative research The major advantages of qualitative study include: (1) subjectivity of the research findings; (2) its vulnerability to researcher’s bias; (3) It requires a lot of labour and resources; (4) limited replicability and generalizability of the research findings and (5) the difficulties encountered in analysing qualitative research data. It is laborious and time consuming (Rubin & Babbie, 2009). Advantages of quantitative research study The main strengths of quantitative research include: (1) the ease of data analysis using statistical tools; (2) the ease of statistical analysis of quantitative data makes it effective in testing hypotheses and (3) the ability to accommodate large sample sizes that increases validity and reliability of the findings. Disadvantages of quantitative research The first weakness of quantitative research is the ignorance of the research context. The second is the connectedness of the research validity with large sample sizes. It can be difficult and expensive to get a large sample size. The third weakness is the high probability of getting unreliable responses from anonymous participants.