Empirical vs Interpretive?

Yikes...this is a revisit from the dreadful sociological research paradigms. I am not too sure if this would help you, but, by the looks of it, nursing seems to align more closely with social "sciences" than the pure sciences, so, here is what they mean in sociology. I hope this helps at least a bit. :)

Empirical - findings based on data (= numbers); research sample size usually a large number of people because, for the sheer purpose of data collection, a single datum would not mean much for explanation; even qualitative data in surveys and questionnaires are represented and transformed into numbers (e.g. 32.5% of the sample responded favorably for XXX); you use calculators and SPSS to yield some sort of statistics

Interpretive; descriptive and qualitative in nature because its principal mode of observable data come from experiences of the subject(s); usually use interviews as a research method (or even participant-observation); descriptive data usually in long, verbose sentences, not in numbers; no restrictions in sample size - a sample can be as small as a person, or a large number of people, because majority of the research is done based on interactional model; however, usually adapted for small scale qualitative research