Nursing Research Methods

I just finished a nursing research class and it was very dull. The material wasn't all that difficult, but like you, I was not interested in research and I dreaded going every week. My professor was an angry little man who would get mad if we didn't understand the stuff immediately, but honestly I just think no one cared about the class! haha I was definitely happy when it was over, but I studied and did the work to earn my A!

You will get sick of hearing qualitative and quantitative, I'll tell you that!

I just finished that class and got very fired up over it.

My instructor was somewhat merciful and told us she didn't like the way this class was taught - it was taught on the master's level and the book was written on the master's/doctorate level. Mind you, we're on the baccalaureate level here.

The material itself is VERY abstract and VERY boring. For me I didn't understand a lot of it until I studied my butt off and was able to understand enough to do well on our final, which determined if we passed or failed the class. I dreaded going to this class every week. We had quizzes to take each week on the chapters which were pretty hard. We also had an article critique: we were given a nursing research article and we had to analyze it - was it qualitative/quantitative, what is the research design, what is the sample population, independent/dependent variables, are the research tools/results reliable & valid, does the study fill the gaps of knowledge, etc etc etc. Article critique assignments in nursing research classes seem to be standard in many schools, so you might come across that. We also had to put together a group paper and presentation. We had to formulate a research question and then - SURPRISE - conduct RESEARCH on the topic to see what is known out there and what isn't known and present the findings. Basically, a review of literature, but overall a huge pain in my a**.

I hated this class so much. We have been conducting research since day 1 in this nursing program so I don't need a class to tell me how to do it again. The information taught in my class was pretty much useless and it makes me even more mad because my school had such strict pass/fail criteria for a *2* credit-hour class and also for material that would NOT show up anywhere on the NCLEX!! Our one test was our final exam (the article critique could be counted as a midterm I guess) but our policy is you must obtain a 74% on the final to pass the class. If you do that, THEN the other grades in the course will be factored in to determine if you get an A, B, C or fail. If you got below a 74% on the final, you automatically failed, no ifs ands or buts. This class put a lot of stress on us at my school.

Hopefully your class won't be as bad. Honestly tho, I haven't met a single person who liked nursing research.

Guess I am the odd duck here - my first exposure to nursing research was taught by a very talented professor who managed to engage us in meaningful activities rather than unending lecture. The over-riding theme of the class was curiosity - how to find out the truth about things. It was only when the semester was ending that I realized we had actually learned all the 'dry' stuff also.

Since that time, I have had many more classes on statistics and research methodology - for MSN & doctorate. I never actually found any of them very difficult - probably due to that excellent undergrad class.

Just goes to show how important the instructor is!!! And maybe - how rare and wonderful they are.

Guess I am the odd duck here - my first exposure to nursing research was taught by a very talented professor who managed to engage us in meaningful activities rather than unending lecture. The over-riding theme of the class was curiosity - how to find out the truth about things. It was only when the semester was ending that I realized we had actually learned all the 'dry' stuff also.

Since that time, I have had many more classes on statistics and research methodology - for MSN & doctorate. I never actually found any of them very difficult - probably due to that excellent undergrad class.

Just goes to show how important the instructor is!!! And maybe - how rare and wonderful they are.

We need more instructors like yours to teach research! Mine ruined it for me lol