Critical Appraisal of a Quantitative Study

Unit 5 Assignment:

Quantitative Research Critical Appraisal Assignment Description 

Purpose

The purpose of assignment is to provide experience and feedback with critical appraisal of a quantitative research study. This assignment is intended to allow you to show evidence of achievement of:

CLO 1: Evaluate existing scientific evidence to be used in decision making related to practice, leadership, or education. (ILO and PLO 3, ILO and PLO 7).

Requirements

This assignment is due at the end of week 8 at 11 p.m. A template is provided which describes the expectations for each section. In addition to submitting this template, also MUST submit a PDF of the study that you chose to appraise. If you do not submit the PDF of the study, your assignment is incomplete and a late penalty will apply. The study that you choose should be a study that you will be using for your synthesis project. It must be a quantitative research study (not a systematic review or a qualitative study) or you will receive a 0 for this assignment. No rewrites or resubmissions will be allowed. Graduate level writing is expected. First person is expected because this is your appraisal of the study.The following rubric will be used to score this assignment.

 

Quantitative Research Critical Appraisal (Template)

Critical Appraisal of a Quantitative Study Template

1. Research Problem and Purpose

 

What are the problem and purpose of the referenced study? (Sometimes ONLY the purpose is stated clearly and the problem must be inferred from the introductory discussion of the purpose.)

 

 

 

2. Hypotheses and Research Questions

 

What are the hypotheses (or research questions/objectives) of the study? Identify the independent and dependent variables. (Sometimes the hypotheses or study questions are listed in the Results section, rather than preceding the report of the methodology used. Occasionally, there will be no mention of hypotheses, but anytime there are inferential statistics used, the reader can recognize what the hypotheses are from looking at the results of statistical analysis.)

 

 

 

 

 

3. Literature Review

 

What is the quality of the literature review? Is the literature review current? Relevant? Is there evidence that the author critically appraised and synthesized the literature or merely reported it? Is there an integrated summary of the current knowledge base regarding the research problem, or does the literature review contain opinion or anecdotal articles without any synthesis or summary of the whole? (Sometimes the literature review is incorporated into the introductory section without being explicitly identified.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Theoretical or Conceptual Framework

 

Is a theoretical or conceptual framework identified? If so, what is it? Which discipline is the conceptual framework drawn from (e.g., many “nursing” research studies draw on a “borrowed” framework, e.g., stress, medical pathology, etc.)? (Sometimes there is no explicitly identified theoretical or conceptual framework.)

 

 

 

 

5. Population

 

What population was sampled? How was the population sampled? Describe the method and criteria. How many subjects were in the sample?

 

 

 

 

6. Protection of Human Research Participants

 

What steps were taken to protect human research subjects?

 

 

 

 

7. Research Design

 

What was the design of the study? If the design was modeled from previous research or pilot studies, please describe.

 

 

 

 

8. Instruments and Strategies for Measurement

 

What instruments and/or other measurement strategies were used in data collection? Was information provided regarding the reliability and validity of the measurement instruments? If so, describe it.

 

 

 

9. Data Collection

 

What procedures were used for data collection?

 

 

 

 

10. Data Analysis

 

What methods of data analysis were used? Were they appropriate to the design and hypotheses?

 

 

 

 

11. Interpretation of Results

 

What results were obtained from data analysis? Is sufficient information given to interpret the results of data analysis?

 

 

 

 

 

12. Discussion of Findings

 

Was the discussion of findings related to the framework? Were those the expected findings?  Were they consistent with previous studies? Were serendipitous (i.e., accidental) findings described?

 

 

 

 

 

 

13. Limitations

 

Did the researcher report limitations of the study? (Limitations are acknowledgments of internal characteristics of the study that may help explain insignificant and other unexpected findings, and more importantly, indicate those groups to whom the findings CANNOT be generalized or applied. It is a fact that all studies must be limited in some way; not all of the issues involved in a problem situation can be studied all at once.)

 

 

 

 

14. Implications

 

Are the conclusions and implications drawn by the author warranted by the study findings? (Sometimes researchers will seem to ignore findings that don’t confirm their hypotheses as they interpret the meaning of their study findings.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

15. Recommendations

 

Does the author offer legitimate recommendations for further research? Is the description of the study sufficiently clear and complete to allow replication of the study? (Sometimes researchers’ recommendations seem to come from “left field” rather than following obviously from the discussion of findings. If a research problem is truly significant, the results need to be confirmed with additional research; in addition, if a reader wishes to design a study using a different sample or correcting flaws in the original study, a complete description is necessary.)

 

 

 

 

16. Research Implications to Your Practice

 

How might this research inform your practice? Are the research findings appropriate to your practice setting and situation? What further research or pilot studies need to be done, if any, before incorporating findings into practice to assure both safety and effectiveness? How might the utilization of this research trigger changes in other aspects of practice?