Qualitative Research: Impact on Nursing & Compassion

There may be no other type of research paradigm involving human participants that possess critical variations in deception as in qualitative studies. When it comes to the nursing field, the impact of qualitative research is even more profound, considering the complexity of the profession. Compassion in the nursing field, for instance, is an area that can be of vital interest for a qualitative study since caring and being compassionate are the moral foundations of healthcare. In the article "Teaching the Practice of Compassion to Nursing Students Within an Online Learning Environment: A Qualitative Study Protocol," Hofmeyer et al. attempts to explore the effectiveness of using the digital online platform in teaching compassion to nursing students (Hofmeyer, 2016). While this article provides a reasonable rationale for explicit teaching of compassion to undergraduate nursing students using an online learning environment, it is somewhat deceptive and limited in the context of replicability, sample, and other requirements of a qualitative study.

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The researchers provide a rationale for using a qualitative descriptive pre-post intervention design to explore the effectiveness of using the online environment in teaching compassion to nursing students (Hofmeyer, 2016). The study involved both pre- and post-intervention qualitative questions in exploring and describing undergraduate nursing students' understanding and learning regarding the practicing of compassion towards patients, staff, and self. Eight questions were posed together with responses that are evident-based. Cognitive interviewing was done too. The researchers took demographic information of age, gender, and enrolment profile, where the analysis was done using descriptive statistics (Hofmeyer, 2016). The authors conclude that the study protocol will be useful in teaching compassion through the online environment and recommends that it should be implemented in any undergraduate nursing program.

Study Title

The researchers have introduced a very important topic because, with the developments in technology, it is crucial to seek alternative ways of teaching some critical nursing modules utilizing technological expansions. The idea of deploying online intervention programs could be advantageous to the nursing students because it would allow them to access crucial compassion information any time, irrespective of whether they are still in campus or not. However, Ann et al. failed to give significant information regarding pre- and post-intervention programs in their study protocol (Hofmeyer, 2016). Failing to provide proper detail would pose a challenge in the attempt to replicate the real study or in further expansion of this research relating to the online class module.

The title of the study is clear and concisely incorporated into the idea being proposed. Inclusion of the word protocol in the title is crucial since if omitted, it could have been misleading as it could confuse if it is final research, yet it is a proposed study. Also, the content words of the title are included in the key terms as required.

Protocol Abstract

The abstract contains the main sections of a study protocol, namely, background, design, methods, and discussion. It is thus clear that the study protocol has mostly followed the general structure that is required as the length of the abstract is 230 words, which is brief and within the recommended 300 words limit (World Health Organization, 2020). However, the abstract has omitted a crucial last section called trial registration. Since this study protocol is involving a health care intervention on human participants, it is therefore supposed to be registered in a suitable registry. The registration number, together with the date of registration, is then indicated in a separate section. To add the suitability of this study protocol, the researchers could have considered this crucial aspect or designating it as "retrospectively registered" for editorial reasons.

Background Information

The article includes background information that is too out of context for the research. In the background information provided, the researchers have discussed extensively what is compassion, and its purpose. Although it has attempted to link the background with the intervention being addressed in the study protocol, it is so limited, and the only relevant part of the background is that talking about whether it is possible to teach compassion. In this section, the authors note that the studies regarding digital teaching of compassion are so minimal, and the usage of many relevant sources is recommendable.

According to researchers, only limited studies have attempted to explore whether or not an online learning environment may be used in teaching compassion as a vital professional value. As a result, there is an attempt to engage this part of literature holistically, highlighting that important studies have examined the role of higher education in the preparation of students in practicing compassion in medical settings.

It is good to mention that researchers in this article have expansively included the literature from 1984 to 2016, which explicitly covers approximately three decades of empirical indications about nursing education as well as clinical practices. It is thus arguably true that the researchers used diverse resources, including books, and journals that may be used to understand the intervention both for the current and future studies. However, the current literature failed to fully link the proposed study to this protocol. It seems that the literature deployed did not fulfill the purpose and appear that it never met the philosophical underpinnings of this study.

Rationale

The study has included a rationale, highlighting that nursing educators have challenges in creating online curricula of teaching compassion together with resilience, where nurses are supposed to practice compassion efficiently while in challenging healthcare settings. The rationale indicates that it is motivated to address the goal by ensuring that compassion is taught explicitly to undergraduate nursing students using the online learning platform. The researchers state that the study was guided by "how care is given through relationships based on respect and dignity" (). This rationale is, however, not convincing since it does not have specific reasons.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a rationale must specify the reasons for proposing research based on existing knowledge (World Health Organization, 2020). It must include the problem statement, which should be well-documented. The rationale should also include the cause of the stated problem together with the probable solutions. It is also supposed to put the study protocol in context. As for this study, it has entirely violated this requirement since it does not have a clear problem statement concerning the online teaching environment. The issue is not about compassion in totality; it is, as per the title and introduction, deploying an online environment to teach it to the nursing students.

The rationale should thus be answering the two main questions of why and what. It has to discuss why the research has to be done as well as what will be its significance. The authors could have clearly stated specific reasons why shifting the teaching of compassion to an online environment is better than the existing way of teaching the module instead of giving literature talking about compassion. The extent, frequency, geographical expanses that are affected, ethnic as well as gender considerations, of the stated problem, was supposed to be accompanied by a brief description of the studies that are most relevant available on the subject of digital online teaching.

Goals and Objectives

In terms of goals and objectives, the study did not provide them concisely. There are no objectives at all, and the goals are so vague. According to WHO guidelines, the objectives of a qualitative study protocol should be simple and specific (World Health Organization, 2020). They should also be stated in advance. Instead of generalizing the study objectives and goals, the authors could have given concise objectives in advance. They should have ensured they are pinned out of the content to enhance the understandability of the proposal.

Ethical Considerations

As highlighted in the protocol, there will be a written informed consent which will be compulsory from the University Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) (Hofmeyer, 2016). Researchers will also follow ethical principles of magnanimity. The data will be stored securely to adhere to ethical requirements. The study will thus unquestionably adhere to the protection of human rights.

The study involves a rather high ecological generalizability, as depicted in the recruitment process for the participants. The entire number of nursing students were emailed out as a way of inviting them to participate. However, there is no specific sample size given in the study, which still reveals how generalized the study is. Since this is a qualitative study protocol, there was no theoretical, conceptual framework used.

Internal Validity

The compassion module questions, as well as both pre- and post-intervention, will be conducted online. Although the distribution of the questions online will be ideal for the study as it will encompass participants from far locations, for example, Australia, as stated in the study, it may bring about a threat to internal validity since the participants who are away. The threat to internal validity could arise since the participants who are away may not be fully focused in answering the questions but rather just finish the task as they are not physically coordinated. Many more factors may still bring about threats to internal validity, yet the authors did not address any of them.

Study Design

According to WHO, a research protocol should have a comprehensive study design and methodology (World Health Organization, 2020). This study has included only two kinds of information required in the study design, which are the type of study and the duration of the study. In this case, it is a qualitative study and will take two weeks to complete the task. It, however, failed to include the sampling population framework together with the selection measures that encompass the inclusion, exclusion, and withdrawal criteria. The research design deployed in this study is in accordance with the interested area of researching.

Although it was a qualitative study protocol, there is no hypothesis or study questions provided in the study as a guide. Research questions and hypotheses could have greatly helped in understanding the purpose of the research proposal. It could also help those to implement it in the way of conducting the research. In terms of methodology, although it is a major section of the study protocol, it is not well developed. The researchers only indicated the two types of data collection to be used, Pre- and post-intervention. No detailed procedures were used as recommended by the WHO (World Health Organization, 2020). Although SurveyMonkey is mentioned as to where qualitative data will be distributed, there is no clear definition of the standardized methodology to be used.

The data analysis was based on Aronson's thematic analysis for the qualitative data. It followed steps that involved creating subcategories (Aronson, 2014). It is a pragmatic strategy that helps the researchers in seeing the entire aspects of data together with the possibility of missing some vital information. However, the study has not given all the entire steps of the thematic analysis offered by Aronson (Aronson, 2014).

The rigor of the Stud...