Whether you’ve got a research paper to write or you are looking for best evidence for a specific intervention, you’ve got to search for the evidence to make or back up your arguments, right? Presumably, you’ve answered your background questions and have your foreground question in a PICO format.
When looking for evidence – where should you start? Well at the top of course! At the top of the hierarchy of evidence quality is pre-appraised evidence (Haynes, 2007). If you go through your university or medical library, there are multiple databases to search, such as MEDLINE or CINAHL. You
P-values and Confidence Intervals In a previous post, I talked about p-values – what they tell you and what they don’t tell you. Quick recap since talking about confidence intervals is related to p-values: p-values ONLY tell you whether a research result is statistically significant or not based on the
This month’s blog theme is nursing research, so I’m discussing the meaning of some statistical concepts to help you interpret the research studies you are reading. I’m going to talk about several concepts this month that I have found both undergraduate and graduate students struggle to really understand. Last week
Every month I answer a question from my readers and nursing colleagues. This month’s question is about evaluating the credibility of an online website and its associated content. There are many online websites that look good — but how do you know if you can trust the information they are
At some point in your graduate nursing program, you will most likely have to write a literature review about an assigned topic or a self-selected topic (e.g., your thesis, dissertation, or capstone project topic). Undergraduate students don’t typically have to write a full-blown literature review; however, the tips in this post
Concept mapping and mind mapping have been used in science education since the 1970s. Nursing students in undergraduate and graduate classes are frequently asked to create concept maps or mind maps around a central concept or idea. These assignments may be used for individual or group projects and as a
At some point in time, your faculty may ask you to write an annotated bibliography or an annotated reference list. This may happen in your undergraduate program, but it is more likely to be a requirement in your graduate program. This post will define terms, outline the difference between
This post will explain how to use a theory to frame a research study. General recommendations that can be used for any research will be shared. Theories, Frameworks, and Models – Oh My! Frameworks to guide research can be based on philosophies, theories, or conceptual models. Every research study has
Several readers have asked me about providing a step-by-step on writing a theory paper. As every instructor has different criteria, that is a hard thing to do! But I can give some guidelines that I would give my students, which may be helpful for your theory paper assignments. Oh, I’m
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