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Title of Your Study
Name
Professor’s Name
Assignment Date
Title of Study
Specific Aims
This section describes what you will study. The purpose statement should be a restatement of your specific aim. Specific aims address what you want to investigate. Number the specific aims (use the numbering command in your word processing program). Research questions address what your study will answer. Number the research questions (use the numbering command in your word processing program. Hypothesis (quantitative) or a priori assumption (qualitative) is an educated guess about what outcome you expect from your research project. In qualitative research, you do not have a hypothesis but you do have an a priori assumption. Number the hypothesis (use the numbering command in your word processing program). This section is 11.5 pages and must contain minimum of two references.
(Start with) The purpose of this study is…
Provide brief information about the problem you want to study (e.g., statistics and reasons this issue should be studied)
Discuss the implications of why this study is important to nursing or important, in general.
The specific aim is (use terms like to examine, to examine, to compare)
1) To examine if meditation reduces stress in nurses
The research question is
1) Is meditation effective in reducing stress in nurses?
The a priori assumption is
1) Nurses participating in meditation will experience less stress
Background
This section is a synthesis of the research that has been done about your research proposal. The articles must relate to your specific aims, research questions, and hypotheses (if applicable) – not the general topic. For example, your specific aim examines if nurses receive education about depression, this will increase nurses screening in their patients for depression. The articles must examine studies about educating nurses or other health professionals about depression, depression screening, and finding out if education increases screening rates for depression (or other illnesses if not a lot about depression). You would not select articles about the topic of depression.
Background (Minimum 8 articles)
(Start with) The literature will examine the research about (THIS SHOULD BE A
RESTATEMENT OF YOUR SPECIFIC AIMS OR AIM).
Example of Synthesis of the Literature
Empirical evidence supports the association between parenting style and child weight. Authoritative parenting has been associated with better outcomes relative to child weight while authoritarian, permissive, and indulgent (rejecting-neglecting) parenting styles have been associated with poorer outcomes. Maternal authoritative parenting predicted lower body mass index (BMI) for both sons and daughters (Berge, Wall, Loth, & Neumark-Sztainer, 2010) and was more likely to be associated with healthy weight in adolescents (Kim, McIntosh, Anding, Kubena, & Reed, 2008). Higher levels of parental acceptance (a behavior associated with authoritative parenting) were associated with lower child BMI, while higher levels of control (a behavior associated with authoritarian parenting) were associated with higher BMI in Caucasian school-aged children (Polfuss & Fenn, 2012). Children of authoritative parents were less likely to be overweight in first grade when compared to children of authoritarian, permissive, or neglectful parents (Rhee, Lumeng, Appugliese, Kaciroti, & Bradley, 2006). In a longitudinal study, Taiwanese children of authoritative mothers were less likely to be overweight if their mothers monitored their dietary intake (Tung & Yeh, 2013).
Not all studies support the association. In a study of middle-class Chinese and Chinese-
American families, democratic (the opposite of authoritarian) parenting was related to higher BMI in children (Chen & Kennedy, 2004). Mexican American children of indulgent mothers were more likely to be overweight than children of authoritative or authoritarian mothers.
Differing cultural views of parenting may account for this difference, although evidence supports the benefits of authoritative parenting in diverse populations (Enten & Golan, 2008).
Risk factors in the home environment such as eating patterns, food and beverage choices, parental restriction and reward, screen time, family activity patterns, and bedtime routine can influence child overweight/obesity. Johnson, Saint-Maurice, & Ihmels (2012) found ethnically and economically diverse families, authoritative parenting was associated with less obesogenic home environments while authoritarian parenting was associated with more obesogenic home environments in ethnically and economically diverse families. Authoritarian parenting is associated with obesity risk throughout childhood (Kakinami et al., 2015).
In addition to authoritarian parenting, permissive parenting has been associated with poorer child outcomes. Permissive parenting predicted obesity for children whose mothers where depressed and for children living in higher socioeconomic households (Topham et al.,
2010). Additionally, children of permissive parents had higher BMIs (Humenikova & Gates, 2008; Johnson et al., 2012; Wake, Nicholson, Hardy, & Smith, 2007) and were heavier earlier in life (Lane, Bluestone, & Burke, 2012).
Additionally, no significant correlations have been found between specific parent feeding practices (restriction and pressure) and parenting style (Brann & Skinner, 2005). Further, Rhee et al. (2006) found children’s weight status at 36 months did not alter the relationship between parenting style and overweight risk in first grade indicating that parenting style remained stable in spite of confounding variables. These findings lend additional support to the idea that parenting style is not situation specific, but rather stable across parent-child interactions.
Despite the higher prevalence of obesity in ethnic minority populations, research to date has been conducted primarily on white, middle-class populations. There is a paucity of research examining the relationship between parenting style and childhood obesity in low-income, ethnically diverse families.
Conceptual Framework
This section discusses the conceptual framework that will guide your study. Frameworks guide the data collection process thus help to formulate the information needed from the participant to address your specific aim. After explaining the chosen framework, the last paragraph explains how the variables you will collect using the chosen framework.
This section is 1-2 pages. When explaining the framework, 1-2 references are required.
(Start with)The conceptual framework guiding this study is (name of framework – e.g., Donabedian quality of care). This framework is useful for this study because (provide the rationale – e.g., it can evaluate the effectiveness of simulation increasing student nurses confidence).
The framework consists of x number (specify number – e.g., three) of components or principles (choose one). Component one (name of the component – e.g., structure) means (tell us what the component is about and give examples), component two means, component three means and so forth.
(Start with) In this study, component one (use component name – e.g., structure) refers to patient characteristics, which are age, education, gender (these are your variables that you want to collect and reflect the component described in the concept map)
No references in this paragraph because you are explaining the information you will collect.
Concept Map
Post your concept map here.
Research Methodology and Design
This section discusses the research methodology, where participants will be recruited (sample population), how the participants will be recruited (sampling techniques), the number of participants (sample size), inclusion and exclusion characteristics, data collection, and data analysis. References (minimum four) will be included when you explain a concept.
THIS SECTION DOES NOT INCLUDE DATA ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS OR RESULTS. YOU ARE NOT DOING THE STUDY, SO CANNOT INCLUDE ANY INFORMATION OTHER THAN HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL PARTICIPATE.
Methodology
(Start sentence) This study will use qualitative description, ethnography, phenomenology, case study, narratives, or historical (SELECT ONE) to examine (use your specific aims).
Example 1
Qualitative description is used to (explain this methodology). Qualitative description is appropriate for this study because (provide rationale – e.g., this methodology facilitates an understanding of why diabetic patients do not adhere to their diets)
Example 2
Ethnography is used to (explain this methodology). Ethnography is appropriate for this study because (provide rationale – e.g., this methodology helps us to understand the role culture plays in diet adherence in diabetic patients).
Sample Population
(Start with) The sample will be drawn from (name the population) from (name the institutions or where you will recruit the study participants).
Example
The sample will be drawn from health professionals who work in academic and community hospitals in the Northeast.
Sample Size
Quota sampling determined a minimum sample size of x number of participants (e.g., 16). This was determined using two initial strata analysis variables (e.g., length of time on dialysis: 0-11 months and 12 months – 24 months) multiplied by the three gender categories (e.g., male female, transgender), and five educational categories (e.g., < H.S, HS or GED, some college, college degree and more than college).
Sampling Techniques
This study will use non-probabilistic sampling techniques (use this technique for qualitative designs). Non-probabilistic sampling techniques are purposeful, convenience, or snowball (pick one and then provide a reference; most studies will use purposeful and not convenience).
Purposeful sampling will be used to recruit the participants. Purposeful sampling is (provide a reference).
Sample Inclusion Characteristics
(Start with) The inclusion characteristics of the participants are (must number or bullet characteristics)
Critical care nurses
Stroke unit nurse
Academic hospital
Sample Exclusion
(Start with) The exclusion characters of the participants are (must number or bullet characteristics)
Nurses who do not work in critical care units
Nurses who do not work in stroke units
Nurses not working in academic hospitals
Data Collection
Data will be collected using focus groups, semi-structured interviews, open-ended interviews, or observations (must identify the methods to collect the data. You can have more than one method but they must be appropriate for your research design). If using a developed instrument to measure depression, anxiety, pain and so forth must include the Cronbach alpha number. For example, The Becks depression scale (Cronbach alpha 0.80) will measure depression in caregivers.
Focus Group Example
Three focus groups will take place in the hospital with 15 participants from each shift. The focus groups will take approximately 60 minutes. The focus groups will be moderated by researcher and will be audiotaped. The focus group discussion will broadly cover reasons nurses do not discuss end-of-life-care with their terminally ill patients.
Semi-Structured Interview Example
Semi-structured interviews will consist of open-ended and closed-ended questions that broadly cover demographic information such as age, gender, income, medical history and reasons why diabetic patients do not adhere to their diets. The interviews will be conducted by the researcher and audiotaped. The interviews will take place at the participant’s home and take about 45 minutes.
Data Analysis
Data will be analyzed using content analysis, grounded theory, discourse analysis, analytic induction, or triangulation (must explain the concept and you data will be analyzed). The interviews will be transcribed verbatim. Transcriptions will then be analyzed to extract the manifest and latent meanings of the data so that themes will be developed based on the data.
Demographic data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics will be used to describe the average age of the participants, their educational levels, work experience and so forth.
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References