Research Critique
Details:
Prepare a critical analysis of a qualitative study focusing on the problem statement, study purpose, research question, literature review, and theoretical framework.
The completed analysis should be 750-1,000 words.
Refer to "Research Critique, Part 1." Questions under each heading should be addressed as a narrative, in the structure of a formal paper.
Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.
Research Critique, Part 1
To write a critical appraisal that demonstrates comprehension of the research study conducted, respond to each of the questions listed under the headings below.
Do not answer the questions with a yes or no; rather, provide a rationale or include examples or content from the study to address the questions.
CRITICAL APPRAISAL GUIDELINES: QUALITATIVE STUDY
Problem Statement
• Identify the clinical problem and research problem that led to the study. What was not known about the clinical problem that, if understood, could be used to improve health care delivery or patient outcomes? This gap in knowledge is the research problem.
• How did the author establish the significance of the study? In other words, why should the reader care about this study? Look for statements about human suffering, costs of treatment, or the number of people affected by the clinical problem.
Purpose and Research Questions
• Identify the purpose of the study. An author may clearly state the purpose of the study or may describe the purpose as the study goals, objectives, or aims.
• List research questions that the study was designed to answer. If the author does not explicitly provide the questions, attempt to infer the questions from the answers.
• Were the purpose and research questions related to the problem?
• Were qualitative methods appropriate to answer the research questions?
Literature Review
• Did the author cite quantitative and qualitative studies relevant to the focus of the study? What other types of literature did the author include?
• Are the references current? For qualitative studies, the author may have included studies older than the 5-year limit typically used for quantitative studies. Findings of older qualitative studies may be relevant to a qualitative study.
• Did the author evaluate or indicate the weaknesses of the available studies?
• Did the literature review include adequate information to build a logical argument?
Conceptual / Theoretical Framework
• Did the author identify a specific perspective from which the study was developed? If so, what was it?
• When a researcher uses the grounded theory method of qualitative inquiry, the researcher may develop a framework or diagram as part of the findings of the study. Was a framework developed from the study findings?
Reference
Burns, N., & Grove, S. (2011). Understanding Nursing Research (5th ed.). Elsevier. ISBN-13: 9781437707502
Research Critique
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Research Critique
Introduction
Ellis et al., (2014) published an article called “American Society of Clinical Oncology Perspective: Raising the Bar for Clinical Trials by Defining Clinically Meaningful Outcomes.” This publication focused on how to improve cancer clinical trials using a better technique than the traditional clinical characteristics and tumor histology. As a result, the authors conducted a thorough literature survey on the subject in order to gain insight on their topic. It is notable that the authors also used a theoretical framework to connect theories and concepts that are relevant to the research topic. This paper reviews Ellis et al., (2014) publication by focusing on the problem statement, study purpose, research question, theoretical framework, and the literature review of the study in question.
Problem Statement
According to Ellis et al., (2014), the use of clinical characteristics and tumor histology to conduct cancer clinical trials is often successful. Nonetheless, the technique frequently results in small incremental changes in the overall survival, which is likely to reflect the effects of agents with uncertain efficiency in a subsection of the population that is hard to identify. Furthermore, this technique calls for the use of a large sample size, which increase the costs of conducting clinical trials. However, the use of relevant biomarkers (genomic tests) produces considerable improvements in results because they have quickly transformed patient care for different cancer types. Thus, the authors intended to establish whether the use of relevant biomarkers result in the aforementioned improvement. The inquiry made by Ellis et al., (2014) is significant to the entire human population because it improves the specificity and sensitivity of the results in addition to using a small samples size for clinical trials.
Purpose and Research Questions
It is notable that Ellis et al., (2014) did not state the research questions directly. Nonetheless, Fraser and Davidson (2011) argue that the research questions for a study could be deduced from its results. Consequently, the results of Ellis et al., (2014) publication reveal that the authors had an objective of determining the recommended targets for significant clinical trials. This was done using four different types of cancer types, which include pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, and colon cancer. Therefore, the main research questions could be to identify the recommended targets for significant clinical trials in pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, and colon cancer. These research questions were related to the research problem owing to the fact that the solutions to the research problems could transform patient care in different cancer types. The use of focused groups (a qualitative method) was relevant in answering the research questions....