NSG 502 Research – Week 10 Reply

Instructions

This is the post for week 10’s reply:

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My research proposal focuses on analyzing the impact that COVID-19 had on new nurse’s transition to practices based on changes the pandemic created in their orientation process. For a researcher, the first and most important step in data analysis is to immerse oneself in the data collected in order to become familiar with the information collected and gain a general idea about themes conveyed by the informants (Gray & Grove, 2020, p. 344). I intend to use this familiarization or immersion process, as a way to identify themes or patterns important for the research that will need to be coded in order to facilitate further analysis.

According to Gray and Grove (2020, p.344), coding or organization of data, selection of specific elements of data for categories, and naming of these categories all reflect the philosophical basis of the study. With regard to my PICO project, I think that using axial or descriptive coding methods will better label and classify data according to concepts elaborated but also using participants’ explicit words. After coding, I intend to proceed by using thematic and constant comparison analysis.

Thematic analysis entails selecting within the information collected three to six overriding abstract ideas that summarize the subject of interest while constant comparison will help me looks at similarity or differences between new and existing data (Gray & Grove, 2020). Even though my PICO focuses on a fairly new phenomenon, I think that the validity of the final findings would be undermined without the application of data comparison during the analysis process.

Finally, I think that the use of Computer-Assisted Data Analysis Software will be a very beneficial tool for this project. These programs have proven to facilitate sorting, organizing, and presenting data faster (Watkins, 2017). They also make it easier to remotely share file between groups of researchers analyzing data, which can be very convenient during a pandemic.

References

Gray, J. R., & Grove, S.K. (2020). Burns and Grove\’s The Practice of Nursing Research: Appraisal, Synthesis, and Generation of Evidence, ninth edition. Elsevier.

Watkins, D. C. (2017). Rapid and rigorous qualitative data analysis: The RADaR technique for applied research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1), 1609406917712131.

Solution

Response

Hi,
Appreciate the information you provided in your initial discussion regarding the analysis part of your research. I believe you provided useful information that is capable of providing clear and complete directions regarding the issue of discussion. I am happy you mentioned coding information into themes as a way of qualitative analysis. According to Elliott (2018), coding is an almost universal process in qualitative research. Coding is a fundamental aspect of the analysis process.

Coding can be defined as the process of analyzing qualitative text data (Elliott, 2018). Basic coding operations can be done in several ways. In smaller projects with a limited amount of data, simple color-coding with markers may suffice with one color for each code. The copy-and-paste function in computer software is very resourceful in copying portions of texts and images into new documents (Linneberg & Korsgaard, 2019). The function, over time, has become very easy to use.

For large amounts of data, dedicated software programs are very useful. Students are encouraged to use such software in qualitative projects to enhance data analysis (Linneberg & Korsgaard, 2019). The software also provides a better presentation of data findings to help in achieving higher levels of qualitative findings. According to Elliott (2018), coding is important in the sense that text data are dense, therefore, a lot of time is required to go through them and make sense of them.

Coding is a way of making sense of text data. It involves indexing or making data to provide an overview of different data to allow the researcher to make sense of them based on the research question (Linneberg & Korsgaard, 2019). Therefore, the data analysis methods proposed by the student are reliable and valid when correctly applied to a qualitative research study.

References

Elliott, V. (2018). Thinking about the coding process in qualitative data analysis. The Qualitative Report, 23(11), 2850-2861. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2155621346?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true
Linneberg, M. S., & Korsgaard, S. (2019). Coding qualitative data: A synthesis guiding the novice. Qualitative research journal. 19(3), 259-270. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-12-2018-0012

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