Help with research class!

[erin1205]

I am seriously starting to confuse myself-can someone help me out there?

So, I am in Research and we are writing a research critique paper on a selected journal article. I already picked my article, and definitely don't want to change it now, but am really starting to question and second guess myself as to whether it is a quantitative study or a qualitative study. I won't post all the details, but here is where I am confused...

This study is basically a profile of a certain type of nursing student. There are four research questions, the students were surveyed and results are of numeric value. All of this would lead me to describe it as a quantitative study....BUT....

The survey sent out was, as the study quotes, qualitative with open ended questions. The report itself has a ton of quotes too. These parts make me question myself and chock it up to a qualitative study. And it stinks because the more I read my text, the more things I find in the report that pull me one direction or another.

I am leaning towards the fact that this is a descriptive quantitative study...maybe slightly mixed method because of the quotes thrown in?

Does anyone have any advice? I have searched and searched, and I just seem to be getting more confused.

Thanks all!

[llg, PhD, RN]

It sounds to me as if it is a study of mixed design -- or at least that's what the authors may have intended it to be. As you have realized, a single study may have both qualitative elements and quantitative elements.

Also, just because an article is published and/or the author has an advanced degree doesn't guarantee that the researcher really did a good job. Sometimes, people who do research don't do such a great job. They get sloppy ... or they don't themselves understand all the methods they are using ... etc. For example: they will THINK they are doing a qualitative study because they ask open-ended question. But then they turn it into a quantitative study by not using qualitative methods to analyze the responses: they use quantitative methods and just count the number of times that specific responses were given. That might be the case with your article.

Does that help any?

[erin1205]

Yes, that does clear some of the fog

I feel like the more times I read this thing, the more torn I get about what it really is! And in reality, in my critique I don't have to answer whether it is one or the other. For me, I just would like to know so I can feel like I understand this stuff.

Thanks!! And any more insight is greatly appreciated!

[erin1205]

I've officially confused myself beyond comprehension with this darn research study!! If you were reading a study that is basically a profile of nursing students which categorizes them demographically and also uses descriptive statistics to describe their experience would you assume it was a quantitative study? My problem is that the survey they sent out collected qualitative data!?! Is it mixed method in that case? I asked my professor, but the response I got has confused me even more....

I feel like I am lost somewhere between total confusion and critical thinking (maybe that last part is wishful thinking, huh?)