Blackbirds Singing in the Dead of Night?: Advancing the Craft of Teaching Qualitative Research

Evaluating the impact of an arts-based multimedia knowledge translation assignment on undergraduate nursing students

BACKGROUND

Despite the expectation that nurses utilize research to provide excellent patient care, students often fail to recognize the value of learning about evidence-informed practice. Experiential, creative pedagogical approaches are needed to engage undergraduate nursing students in evidence-informed practice. In two undergraduate courses, we implemented an innovative assignment in which students created an arts-based multimedia knowledge translation presentation to communicate systematic review findings to patients.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate how the assignment affected nursing students' satisfaction, learning, and anticipated behaviour changes regarding evidence-informed practice and to assess what factors influenced their evaluation of the assignment.

DESIGN AND METHODS

Kirkpatrick's Evaluation Model and Groff's Theory of Whole-Mindedness informed our study, incorporating an observational cross-sectional survey design. We recruited a convenience sample of nursing students (N = 242) from two baccalaureate programs. We collected data with an online survey comprised of closed- and open-ended questions. Quantitative data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, univariate analysis, and general linear models, and qualitative data with content analysis.

RESULTS

Most students were satisfied (68%) and reported learning (77%) and benefits for their future practice (75%). Age, enjoyment of and experience with the arts, type of motivation, and valuing evidence-informed practice were significant predictors (p < 0.01) and the model predicted 59% of the variance in positive student perceptions of the assignment. Students reported experiencing relational and engaged learning, translating research findings creatively and clearly, understanding complex research concepts through experiential learning, and having frustrations and pragmatic concerns.

CONCLUSION

Creative approaches that contextualize research findings hold potential to deepen students' understanding of evidence-informed practice. This study identified key factors that influenced students' evaluation and experience of the assignment. These results provide valuable insights to inform effective implementation of arts-based assignments in nursing education.

Making research real: Innovative approaches for graduate level nursing research

BACKGROUND

Engaging graduate students in the research process is often challenging. Making research real requires more innovation than lecture alone.

PURPOSE

This project is a new curricular approach to Nursing Research, where graduate students collectively engage in the entire research process, from project conception through dissemination.

METHODS

The Seven Principles of Good Practice framework was utilized to structure this innovative teaching strategy. Graduate students work together over the course of four semesters with the same faculty member guiding their research study. There are six major components to this innovative curriculum approach: student driven research idea, proposal writing, IRB application process, data collection, data analysis, and dissemination.

RESULTS

Student enthusiasm was consistent across all five research projects to date. Students report they have been challenged by the experience but also enjoyed it. The group research project turned something that seemed intimidating into something accomplishable. Students spoke to the idea that through the process of mentoring and collaboration, they gained the needed skills and confidence to embrace their own research agendas.

CONCLUSION

Developing and maintaining a student research innovation creates an enriched environment for instilling the passion and practical experience of being a nurse researcher.

Teaching Qualitative Research

Qualitative research has become increasingly perceived as well suited to the advancement of counseling psychology, yet opportunities for formal training in qualitative inquiry remain inconsistently available within and across graduate programs. For the potential contribution of this approach to counseling psychology to be realized, graduate students need routine access to adequate and appropriate coursework. In this article, the author shares a design and rationale for an introductory course in qualitative research, describes typical challenges faced by students, and offers strategies for fostering student learning and success. Limitations of the approach are discussed and recommendations offered based on lessons learned from practice.

Dialog on a country path: the qualitative research journey

There is little information in the literature describing how students learn qualitative research. This article describes an approach to learning that is based on the pedagogical approach of Dinkins' Socratic-Hermeneutic Shared Inquiry. This approach integrates shared dialog as an essential aspect of learning. The qualitative pedagogy described in this article focused on three questions: What is knowing in qualitative research? How do we come to know qualitative research? What can we do with qualitative research? Students learned the basics of qualitative research within a context that fostered interpretive inquiry. In this way, the course framework mirrored the combination of interviewing, storytelling, and journeying toward understanding that constitute qualitative research.

Issues of intimacy and sexuality in the face of cancer: the patient perspective

Experiencing a diagnosis of cancer has the potential to dramatically alter the way in which a person experiences intimate and sexual aspects of their lives. This article draws on data from a larger study into issues of intimacy and sexuality from the perspectives of patients and health professionals in cancer and palliative care. A 3-stage reflexive inquiry involved semistructured participant interviews (n = 82), textual analysis of national and international clinical practice guidelines (n = 33), and participant feedback at 15 patient and health professional educational forums. This article will present the analysis of 50 patient interviews, which showed 5 clusters of responses to a cancer diagnosis: "focus on survival," "trust in health professional," "desire for choices," "search for normality," and "need for negotiated communication." Most patients were searching for a reflexive, patient-centered and negotiated style of communication from the health professional of their choice, at a time and in a manner that suited their individual needs. Many patients were disappointed by the lack of information, support, and practical strategies provided by health professionals to assist them to live with the sexual and intimate changes they had experienced in the face of a life-limiting disease. Implications for nursing practice are discussed.

On being dependent on home mechanical ventilation: depictions of patients' experiences over time

In this study, the authors describe the meanings of experiences of being dependent on a ventilator (HMV) and living at home as narrated by 13 people who had been using a ventilator via a mask or tracheostomy for half a year. The analyses revealed various movements across time toward the goal of using the ventilator successfully, and some narratives depicted suffering caused by care. The analyses also yielded different representations of embodiment. These findings were abstracted into two contrasting meanings of the experience of using HMV over time: a closing in or an opening up of the lived body, oneself, to other people and to the world. The authors illustrate this interpretation with two images. Ignorance and negative attitudes on the part of professionals working and/or managing care in the patients' homes are interpreted as causing suffering and intensifying a closed-in mode of being.

The Multicultural Research Process

Qualitative research allows students to explore the complex experiences of health and illness and examine assumptions related to class, race, gender, and ethnicity. Faculty who teach qualitative research can promote culturally congruent nursing practice, and students can learn how such practice is grounded in research. The experiential approach taken in this class acquainted students with basic principles of qualitative research, used such principles to foster recognition of assumptions and increase cultural awareness, and encouraged a new way of knowing and being in nursing. The learning goals were to experience the "flavor" of qualitative data analysis using a filmed interview of an American Indian nurse and written interviews of a Hispanic/Latina nurse and nursing student, speaking about their educational experiences in nursing. In this process, the nurse educator exemplified principles of multicultural education for these budding teachers, such as weaving cultural content across the curriculum and role modeling concern for cultural issues in teaching, research, and service.