How to Critique the Relevance, Wording and Congruence of Research Questions
One of the important components of research is the Research Question because this is where the research will resolve. That is the why phrasing of a research question is very important because the clarity that it will produce will be used as the guide on the flow of the research. One of the important tasks of a researcher is to critique the relevance, wording, and congruence of the research question that will be formulated so that they will be able to achieve a good research questions that will answer the purpose why their research study is being conducted.
Relevance of the research question should be observed because the research study that will be produced will serve as a guide to other researchers and other people in the field that the research is focusing. The research question should help other people so that there will be an improvement to their chosen practice. Being feasible, interesting, novel, and ethical should be also considered in order to have a relevant research question.
In wording, there is a lot to things to consider since word choice can make a huge difference on the aim and the purpose of the study. First, the research question should be find easily. It is useful to use words such as “purpose, aim, or question” so that the person that will read the research will be able to find the research question easily that is usually placed in the abstract, end of introduction, and in the beginning of the methodology. Second, the wording of the research question should be clear, concise, and specific because if not, the research question will appear unclear and incomplete to the readers. It should also include important factors such as population of interest, variables or phenomena under study, and any proposed relationship among them. Lastly, the structure of the research question should be properly observed. In a quantitative research, the question should include the population, intervention, comparison, outcome, and time (PICOT) while in the qualitative research the research question should include the central phenomenon focus of the study, participant, and context.
Research question should be congruent because this is the driving force behind the study. The research question should be congruent enough since it will tell what methodology should be used for the research study. The congruency of the research question will help guide the researchers to identify what design, population, data collection, and analysis should be performed. When the methodology is already identified, justification should be provided in order to make sure that the research question answered the aim of the methodology otherwise the research question should be reworded for congruency and clarity.
Evidence – Based Practice Step 3 – Rapid Critical Appraisal
Evidence Based Practice (EBP) is the integration of clinical judgment or expertise, best evidence from literature findings, and patient preferences or values. EBP is important in nursing practice because it helps nurses to provide a high quality care through the help of well-founded decisions from the different scientific research. It is important that EBP is critically appraise to confirm that the presented evidence practice is reliable enough to be used in the field. In looking for an evidence – based practice, the source should be scholarly because it is already peer reviewed wherein there are reviewers that evaluated the article and made suggestions on the things that needed to change so that the study is already improved before it get officially published.
In order to for the researcher to rapidly and critically appraise the evidence based practice, they should consider the level of evidence, how well the study was conducted, and how useful it will be to the researchers, situations, and patients. Identifying the level of evidence is needed because the higher it is in the pyramid the high quality the information will be. That is why it is much better if the study is meta-analyzed, systematic reviewed, and randomized controlled trial (RCT). It is important to know how well the study was conducted because it will serve as an overview how the study was performed. In critiquing how the research was conducted, the sample size and duration and completeness of follow-up to the participants should be look into which usually can be found in the abstract, methods, and result. In sample size of the study, it should be big enough in order to see the variations among the participants. The duration of the follow-up to the participants should also be longer because it will clearly see the changes that happened from the first day of the research was conducted until its end. Although, a short follow-up is still accepted as long as the nature of the research is also short term. The completeness of the follow-up should be also noted since it will determine how many participants withdrew, removed, stopped, or died while the study is being conducted in order to see if the participants of the study become weak. If the participants drop by 20%, the study might became weak in which it will greatly affect its reliability. It is also a must to determine how the study is useful to the researcher, situation, and patient by looking into consideration how the participant matches the population and how it will make a difference to receiver of the research. It is also advisable to use an appraisal checklist since it is useful in making the rapid critical appraisal much easier in determining if the evidence based practice is well grounded to use in the practice.
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