QUANTITATIVE
provoking or foreign to their usual
RESEARCH
RESEARCH DESIGN
 Basic strategies that researchers adopt to develop
evidence that is accurate and interpretable
ASPECTS OF QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
1. Interventions
 Experimental studies
 Researchers play an active role by introducing
the intervention
 Nonexperimental studies
 The researcher observes phenomena as they
naturally occur without intervention
2. Comparisons
 Comparison between two or more groups
 Comparison of one group's status at two or
more points in time
 Comparison of one group's status under
different circumstances
 Comparison based on relative rankings
 Comparison with other studies
3. Controls for extraneous variables
 Important feature of the research design of
quantitative studies
 The steps that will be taken to control
extraneous variables
4. Timing of data collection
 The researcher must decide on the number of
data collection points needed to address the
research question properly
 Research design also designates when,
relative to other events, data will be collected
5. Research Sites and Settings
 Sites and settings should be selected so as to
maximize the validity and reliability of the
data
 In designing a study, it may be important to
consider whether participants are influenced
by being in settings that may be anxiety-
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experiences
6. Communication with the Subjects
 The researcher must decide how much
information to provide to study participants
 The researcher should also consider the costs
and benefits of alternative means of
communicating information to study
participants
OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH DESIGN TYPES
 Quantitative designs tend to be fairly structures
 Quantitative researchers specify the nature of any
intervention, comparisons to be made, methods
to be used to control extraneous variables, the
study site and setting, and information to be given
to participants - all before a single piece of data is
gathered
DIMENSIONS OF RESEARCH DESIGNS
1. Between - Subjects and Within - Subjects Designs
 Between - subjects designs
Ex: If the researchers were interested in comparing
the pain tolerance of men and women, the groups
being compared would obviously involve different
people
 Within - subjects designs
 Comparisons for the same study participants
 Involve comparisons of the same people under
two conditions or at two points in time
2. The Time Dimension
 Four situations in which it is appropriate to design
a study with multiple points of data collection:
1. Studying time-related processes
 Evolves over time
2. Determining time sequences
3. Developing comparisons over time
 Changes have occurred over time
4. Enhancing research control
 Collection of data at multiple points to
enhance the interpretability of the results

STUDIES CATEGORIZED IN TERMS HOW THEY DEAL
WITH TIME
A. Cross - Sectional Designs
 Collection of data at one point in time
 Appropriate for describing the status of
phenomena at a fixed point in time
 Most appropriately used to infer time sequence
under two circumstances:
1. When there is evidence or logical reasoning
indicating that one variable preceded the
other
2. When a strong theoretical framework guides
the analysis
 Also be designed to permit inferences about
processes evolving over time
 Cohort comparison design
 Comparison of multiple age cohorts
Advantages;
 Practical
 Easy to do
 Relatively economical
B. Longitudinal Designs
 A study in which data are collected at more than
one point in time over an extended period
Several types:
a) Trend studies
 Samples from a population are studied over
time with respect to some phenomenon
 Permit researchers to examine patterns and
rates of change over time and to predict
future developments
 Based on surveys
a.1) Cohort studies
 Kind of trend study in which specific
subpopulations are examined over time
 Samples are usually drawn from specific
age - related subgroups
b) Cross - sequential design
 Cohort - sequential design
 Longitudinal cohort comparison design
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 Two or more age cohorts are studied
longitudinally so that both changes over time
and generational differences can be detected
c) Panel studies
 The same people are used to supply data at
two or more points in time
 Allow researchers to examine how conditions
and characteristics at time I influence
characteristics and conditions at time 2
 Attrition
 Loss of participants over time = most serious
challenge
 Drop out of the study often differ in important
ways from those who continue to participate
> potential biases and lack of generalizability
d) Follow - up studies
 Usually undertaken to determine the
subsequent development of individuals who
have specified condition or who have received
a specified intervention
DIMENSIONS OF RESEARCH DESIGNS
Experiments
 Researchers are active agents
 Controlled experiments = gold standard for
yielding reliable evidence about causes and
effects
CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE EXPERIMENTS
1. Manipulation
 Involves doing something to study participants,
which constitute the independent variable
2. Control
 Achieved by manipulating, by randomizing, by
carefully preparing the experimental protocols
and by using a control group
 Obtaining evidence of relationships requires
making at least one comparison
 Control group refers to a group of subjects whose
performance on a dependent variable is used to
evaluate the performance of the experimental
 group or treatment group on the same
dependent variable
3. Randomization (or random assignment)
 Involves placing subjects in groups at random
 If subjects are placed in groups randomly, there is
no systemic bias in the groups with respect to
attributes that could affect the dependent
variable
 Cluster randomization
 Involves randomly assigning clusters of
individuals to different treatment groups
 Sometimes enhance the feasibility of conducting
a true experiment
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS
1. Basic Experimental Designs
A) After - only design or a posttest - only design
 Data on the dependent variable are collected
only once - after random assignment is
completed and the experimental treatment has
E) Randomized Block Design
been introduced
B) Before - after design or a pretest - posttest design
 Most widely used experimental design
 The initial measure of the dependent variable is
often referred to as the baseline measure, and
the posttest measure of the dependent variable
may be referred to as the outcome measure -
that is, the measure that captures the outcome
of the experimental intervention
C) Solomon Four - Group Design
 When data are collected both before and after
F) Crossover Design
an intervention, the posttest measure of the
dependent variable may be posttest measure of
the dependent variable may be affected not only
by the treatment but also by exposure to the
pretest
 Involves two experimental groups and two
control groups
D) Factoral Design
 Permits the testing of multiple hypotheses in a
single experiment
 "Is auditory stimulation most effective when
linked to a certain dose and tactile stimulation
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most elective when coupled with a different
dose?"
 Evaluate the main effects and the
interaction effects
 Subjects are assigned at random to a specific
combination of conditions
1. Does auditory stimulation have a more
beneficial effect on the development of
premature infants than tactile stimulation, or
vice versa?
2. Is the duration of stimulation related to infant
development?
3. Is auditory stimulation most effective when
linked to a certain dose and tactile stimulation
most effective when coupled with a different
dose?
 The two independent variables in a factorial
design are the factors
 Each factor must have two or more levels
 A design that looks similar to a factorial design
 There are two factors (independent variables),
but one factor is not experimentally
 manipulated
 Variable that cannot be manipulated is known as
blocking variable
 The inclusion of a blocking variable in a study
design enhances the researcher's control over
sample composition (i.e., to ensure the sufficient
numbers of subjects with specific characteristics
are included) and over extraneous variables
 Also known as a repeated measures design
 Involves the exposure of the same subjects to
more than one experimental treatment
 This type of within - subjects design has the
advantage of ensuring the highest possible
equivalence among subjects exposed to
different conditions
 Subjects are randomly assigned to different
orderings of treatments
 Although crossover designs are extremely
powerful, they are inappropriate for certain
 research questions because the problem of carry an intervention that is richer, more intense, or
- over effects longer
5. Delayed treatment

EXPERIMENTAL AND CONTROL CONDITIONS

Three criteria for causality:
The Experimental Condition
1. Temporal; a cause must precede an effect in time
 To give an experimental intervention a fair test,
researchers need to carefully design an  In experiments, researchers manipulate the
intervention that is appropriate to the problem independent variable and then measure
and of sufficient intensity and duration that subsequent outcomes, and so the sequence is
effects might reasonably be expected under their control
 Some questions that the researchers need to
2. There can be an empirical relationship between
address
1. What is the intervention, and how does it the presumed cause and the presumed effect
differ from usual methods of care?  In an experiment, the empirical relationship
2. If there are two alternative interventions, how between the independent and dependent
exactly do they differ? variables is put to a direct test
3. What are the specific procedures to be used
with those receiving the intervention? 3. The relationship cannot be explained as being
4. What is the dosage or intensity of the caused by a third variable
intervention?
5. Over how long a period will the intervention EXPERIMENTAL LIMITATIONS
be administered, how frequently will it be  Criticized for their artificiality
administered, and how will the treatment
 Part of the difficulty lies in the requirements for
begin?
randomization and then equal treatment within
6. Who will administer the intervention? What
groups
are their credentials and what type of special
 Focus on only a handful of variables while holding
training will they receive?
all else constant
7. Under what conditions will the intervention
 Experiments that are undertaken without a
be withdrawn or altered?
guiding theoretical framework are sometimes
Goal: To have a comparable intervention for all criticized for being able to establish a causal
subjects in the treatment group connection between an independent and
dependent variable without providing any causal
The Control Condition explanation for why the intervention resulted in
the observed outcomes
 Used as a basis of comparison in a study is
 Problem with experiments conducted in clinical
referred to as the counter-factual
settings is that it is often clinical staff, rather than
 Based on theoretical or substantive grounds
researchers, who administer an intervention, and
 Practical or ethical concerns
therefore it can sometimes be difficult to
 Possibilities of counterfactual
determine if subjects in the experimental group
1. Alternative intervention
actually received the treatment, and if those in
2. A placebo or pseudointervention presumed to
the control group did not
have no therapeutic value
 Problem emerges if subjects themselves have
3. Standard methods of care
discretion about participation in the treatment
4. Different doses or intensities of treatment
 Hawthorne effect
wherein all the subjects get some type of
 Placebo effect
treatment, but the experimental group gets
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  Double Hawthorne effect > double - blind
experiments
QUASI - EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS
 Quasi - experiments
 Involve the manipulation of an independent
variable, that is, an intervention
 Lack randomization to treatment groups
 Not as powerful as experiment in establishing
causal connections between interventions and
outcomes
 Hallmark = the effort to introduce strategies to
compensate for the absence of either
randomization or control groups
 Nonequivalent Control Group Pretest - Posttest
Designs
 Most frequently used quasi - experimental design
 Involves an experimental treatment and two
groups of subjects observed before and after its
implementation
 Comparison group is usually used in lieu of control
group to refer to the group against which
outcomes in the treatment group are evaluated
 Preexperimental
 Nonequivalent control group posttest - only
design = weak fundamentals
 Time Series Designs
 Also referred to as the interrupted time series
design
 Information is collected over an extended period
and an intervention is introduced during that
period
 Does not eliminate all problems of interpreting
changes in turnover rate, the extended time
period strengthens the ability to attribute change
to the intervention
 Time series non-equivalent control group design
 Involve collecting data over an extended period
from both the subjects with intervention
introduced and compared to subjects the
intervention was not imposed
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 Single - subject experiments
 Sometimes referred to as N - of - I studies
 Use time series designs to gather information
about an intervention based on the responses of
a single patient (or a small number of patients)
under controlled conditions
 Most basic design involves a baseline phase of
data gathering and an intervention phase, yielding
what is referred to as in AB design
STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF QUASI -
EXPERIMENTS
 Practical = great strength
 Introduce some research control when full
experimental rigor is not possible
 Several rival hypotheses
NONEXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
 Reasons for Undertaking Nonexperimental
Research
 Vast number of human characteristics are
inherently not subject to experimental
manipulation; effects > cannot be studied
experimentally
 There are many variables that could be
technically manipulated but could not be
manipulated ethically
 Not practical to conduct a true experiment
 Some research questions for which an
experimental design is not appropriate
 Nonexperimental research is usually needed
before an experimental study can be planned
Ex Post Facto / Correlational Research
 2 broad classes of nonexperimental research
I.) Ex Post Facto Research
 "From after the fact"
 Means that the study has been conducted
after variations in the independent variable
have occurred
  Attempts to understand relationships among
phenomena as they naturally occur, without
any intervention
 More often referred to as correlational
research
Purpose of correlational research
 To understand relationships among variables
 Riskier to infer causal relationships in correlations
research because of the lack of control over the
independent variable
 Investigators do not control the independent
variables
Retrospective Designs
 A phenomenon existing in the present is linked
to phenomena that occurred in the past, before
the study was initiated
Case - control design
 Involves the comparison of cases (with certain
illness or condition) with controls (without
Illness)
Prospective Nonexperimental Designs
 Sometimes called a prospective cohort design
 Starts with a presumed cause and then forward
in time to the presumed effect
 Often longitudinal, but may also be cross -
sectional (subjects' point of view) if reliable
information about the independent variable is
available in records or existing data sources
 Not all longitudinal studies are prospective,
because sometimes the independent variable
has occurred long before the initial wave of data
collection. And not all prospective studies are
longitudinal in the classic sense.
 More costly
 Follow - up period may be necessary before
the dependent variable manifests itself
 Large samples
 Dependent variable of interest is rare
 Researchers confirm that all subjects are free
from the effect at the time the independent
variable is measured > difficult or expensive
 Considerably stronger than retrospective studies
 Some are exploratory
 The researcher measures a wide range of
possible "causes" at one point in time, and
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then examines an outcome of interest at a
later point
 Stronger than retrospective studies if it can be
determined that the outcome was not present
initially
 Not as powerful as prospective studies that
involve specific a priori hypotheses and the
comparison of cohorts known to differ on a
presumed cause
Natural Experiments
 A group is exposed to natural or other
phenomena that have important health
consequences and are compared with a
nonexposed group
 Can offer strong evidence about the effect of an
independent variable on outcomes of interest if
the comparison is carefully selected to achieve
equivalence of groups being compared with
regard to everything but the event
Path Analytic Studies
 Researchers interested in testing theories of
causation based on nonexperimental data
 Using sophisticated statistical procedures - Allow
researchers to test whether nonexperimental data
conform sufficiently to the underlying model to
justify causal inferences
2) Descriptive Research
 Second broad calls of nonexperimental studies
 Purpose: to observe, describe, and document
aspects of a situation as it naturally occurs and
sometimes to serve as a starting point for
hypothesis generation or theory development
Descriptive Correlational Studies
 Although researchers often focus on
understanding the causes of behaviors,
condition, and situations, sometimes they can
do little more than describe relationships
without comprehending causal pathways
 Aim: to describe the relationship among
variables rather than to infer cause - and -
effect relationships
 Usually cross - sectional
Univariate Descriptive Studies
 Not necessarily focus on only one variable
 Two types of descriptive study from the field of
epidemiology
1) Prevalence studies are done to determine the
prevalence rate of some condition at a particular time
 Rely on cross - sectional designs in which data
are obtained from the population at risk of
the condition
Point Prevalence Rate (PR)
For example:
If we sampled 500 adults aged 21 years and above
living in a community, administered a measure of
depression, and found that 80 people met the criteria
for depression. Calculate the prevalence rate of
clinical depression.
2) Incidence studies are used to measure the
frequency of developing new cases
 Longitudinal designs are needed to determine
incidence because the researcher must first
establish who is at risk of becoming a new
case - that is, who is free of condition at the
outset
Incidence Rate (IR)
For example, In October 2001, we sampled 500 adults
aged 21 years and above living in a community,
administered a measure of depression, and found that
80 people met the criteria for depression. We
calculate the prevalence rate at 16 per 100 persons
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for that year. We reassessed the sample in October
2002 and found from the 420 persons who were
deemed not to be clinically depressed in 2001, 21
were now found to meet the criteria for depression.
Calculate the I - year incidence rate
Prevalence rate = 16 per 100 persons
New cases = 21
Population = 420
Incidence rate of new cases with clinical depression
is 5 per 100
Relative Risk
 An estimate of risk of case in one group
compared with another
 Computed by dividing the rate for one group
by the rate for another group
 Important index in determining the
contribution of risk factors to a disease or
condition
LIMITATIONS OF CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH
Major disadvantage:
 Weak in their ability to reveal causal
relationships
 Susceptible to faulty interpretations
 Researcher works with preexisting groups that
were not formed at random, but rather by a self-
selecting process
 Preexisting differences may be a plausible
alternative explanation for any group differences
on the dependent variable
STRENGTHS OF CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH
 Efficient means of collecting a large amount of
data about a problem
  Often strong in realism and therefore has an
intrinsic appeal for solving practical problems

DESIGNS AND RESEARCH EVIDENCE

 Evidence for nursing practice depends on

descriptive, correlational and experimental
research
 Descriptive studies can be invaluable in
documenting the prevalence, nature, and
intensity of health-related conditions and
behaviors, and are critical in the development of
effective interventions
 Descriptive studies that contribute to the
development of descriptive theories can make a
particularly valuable contribution
 Correlational studies are often undertaken in the
next phase of developing a knowledge base
 Exploratory retrospective studies may pave the
way for more rigorous case - control studies, and
for prospective studies
 During the design and early testing of an
intervention, it is often appropriate to conduct a
pilot study (sometimes called a feasibility study)
 Rigorous experimental tests of interventions are
expensive, and so it is often useful to begin with a
small - scale to determine the feasibility of a
larger study and to ascertain whether a proposed
approach shows promise
 Pilot studies can provide clues about the likely
success of the intervention, and about ways in
which the intervention can be strengthened or
modified
 Also provide methodologic guidance
 The progression of evidence - building from
descriptive studies to rigorous experimental ones
is related to the ability of designs to reveal causal
relationships

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