Anonymous surveys and impact on nursing

llg, PhD, RN · Feb 18, 2016

I think that most of the studies that use allnurses are just little studies for school that have minimal impact on the world. They are "practice" for students who need to learn how to go through the process of collecting and analyzing data. It can take months (even years) to conduct a major, significant study -- and people can't get it done perfectly in a single semester. So they do these little "fluff surveys" to generate some quick data to play with and learn the processes. If all they accomplish is give the student some practice and generate some interesting discussion for their class, I am OK with that.

Occasionally, I see more sophisticated projects here -- but not often. As long as the proper procedures are being followed, I have no objection. I can choose to respond or not.

That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Feb 18, 2016

You are surveying an anonymous group of people on their opinion on the validity of anonymous surveys....Interesting :)

Libby1987 · Feb 19, 2016

You are surveying an anonymous group of people on their opinion on the validity of anonymous surveys....Interesting :)

I thought about that!

elkpark · Feb 19, 2016

Well, it isn't really a "survey," it's a conversation. I see that as v. different (maybe I'm an outlier on that). Re: the original comment, I figure that's on the school, not Allnurses. If a nursing program doesn't know any better than to accept an anonymous internet poll as a legitimate source or "research" (and is, therefore, teaching that to the students), there isn't anything any of us can do about that, although it certainly diminishes nursing. What's really said is that there are probably nursing "schools" out there where that would fly, and they are somehow allowed to continue operating.

klone, MSN, RN · Feb 19, 2016

A lot of qualitative research is done through anonymous polling. An anonymous survey, in and of itself, is not useless or invalid. It depends entirely on how it's designed and conducted.

elkpark · Feb 19, 2016

A lot of qualitative research is done through anonymous polling. An anonymous survey, in and of itself, is not useless or invalid. It depends entirely on how it's designed and conducted.

Sure -- over the years, I've gotten a number of surveys I've been asked to complete as part of someone's nursing research, in which my responses would be anonymous. But I was identified as someone who met the researcher's criteria and the survey was mailed or emailed to me directly, and the researcher knew generally who (what) the respondents were. To me, that's v. different from just posting a "survey" on-line in a setting in which anyone with internet access can respond (like, on this site) and the "researcher" has no idea of the actual characteristics or credentials of the respondents.

Libby1987 · Feb 19, 2016

A lot of qualitative research is done through anonymous polling. An anonymous survey, in and of itself, is not useless or invalid. It depends entirely on how it's designed and conducted.

Anonymous wasn't the accurate term but I couldn't come up with what I meant. There's anonymous nursing surveys and then there's anonymous online surveys where you can't qualify your respondents as anything other than random strangers. And they might not be so random as perhaps they should be when you can further skew the results by going to an online community that leans in one direction or another.

As far as AN's versus the school's versus the individual's responsibility, I think they all have a responsibility to maintain as much research integrity as possible but I'm not in charge.

I was taking it too literally, I didn't realize doctorate theses were built on practice/play research, so I guess no big deal then?