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Hi.
My name is Sarah Fry and I am going to do a brief presentation on
my research project that I am doing through Cal Stat San Bernardino for
my Master’s in Nursing.
I began my research project slightly different than some.
I started with a problem. And as many of you know,
that problem was care plans. As a student I was frustrated
at having a different care plan every quarter for 3 years.
I was also frustrated at having 20 page care plans as a student.
Then, when I became
a clinical instructor, I was frustrated at grading
20 page care plans. I saw
that students were having the same frustrations that I had as a student.
I also saw that care plans
weren’t allowing students to connect the dots of their assessment data to the rest
of the nursing process.
I felt strongly that care
plans needed to improve student learning and not be busy work.
It seemed to me that
it would be difficult for students to connect a piece of data that was on
page 2 of a care plan to a piece of data that was on page 14 of the care plan.
I wanted students to see the whole picture.
and see that everything is interconnected.
and everything can come together.
I have had some
wonderful mentors, including of course, Dr. Stoner
She is the chair of my committee. When I went to her
and explained my interest and the problems that I had with the care plans
she said “hmmm, why don’t you do some research on concept maps”.
I tried to do just that.
I started researching care plans and concept maps and realized that
“hmm, I’m not very good at this, how do I research these topics?”
So with the assistance of the library tutorials and
of course, Dr. Beaman, I learned how to use the
library database. This of course lead to
over a hundred articles and studies on concept mapping.
All of these revolved around nursing education
and that soon became my lit review.
The literature
revealed that instructors were using concept maps as care plans.
Concept maps were proven to increase critical thinking in nursing students.
Concept maps were based on a theory that revolved
around this term, that I just love, called meaningful learning.
It also showed that concept map based care plans
can help students connect theory to patient care in the clinical setting.
So after I gathered all the data, I needed to come up with a research study.
I wanted to compare learning with the old care plans to the
learning with the concept map based care plans.
So for this quasi-experimental study, I needed
a control group and an experimental group.
The control group would be the group that would use the old care plans.
That group consisted of the 2009
Fall nursing 201 students.
at the Palm Desert campus.
The experimental group would be the group to learn concept mapping
and use concept map based care plans. That group consisted
of the Fall 2010 Nursing 201 class at
the Palm Desert Campus. So once,
I had developed my study, I needed to get permission to conduct my research study.
So, who gives someone permission to do this?
That would be your Institutional Review Board (IRB).
I view the IRB as an ethics board.
They are there to make sure that I understand the ethical aspects
of my study and that I am following through ethically
during the study. They insure that participants
are not coerced, participants are safe from harm, and
that privacy is maintained. With the IRB
application, submittal of all forms that are used
in my study is required. This of course includes an informed
consent. As nursing students
you all understand the purpose of an informed consent and
this consent was signed by all participants in both control and experimental
groups.
After I conducted my study, I scored the care plans
from both groups and compared mean scores
from the control group to the experimental group.
I also collected
demographics for both sets of students to determine equivalency
of the 2 groups. This is to insure that the differences
in the scores that I might find, are due to the intervention
of concept mapping and not extraneous reasons.
And finally, I compared
the mean scores of the first care plan to the mean scores of the third care plan
in both groups to see if the scores increased.
You may be thinking “of course they increased”, because we always get better
at things as we practice so of course your scores from your first care plan to your third care plan should
increase, however I expected that the experimental group
scores would increase more-so than the control group.
So, what are my results? Well
I am still working on those, however I can tell you, as of today
that there is a statistically significant difference
between the two groups.
Let me just say that research has changed the way
I see nursing. Every problem I encounter, I ask myself
“Hmmm, I wonder what the evidence says on this matter”
I see patients as a patient population now instead of just an individual
with an individual problem. Which of course they are individuals
but they are also a part of a population and that can have
so many bearings on the reasons that they have the problems that they do.
I have also become acutely aware
of trends. Just recently I noticed in the Neuro ICU
where I work, that we have a lot of young Hispanic females
about the same age range, come in with ruptured aneurysms.
It was peculiar to me, so I asked one of our physicians who
is very much endorses educating us (which I love). I asked
him if the pattern was due to the population of the valley or if
there was some sort of genetic component.
His answer was of course, “it could be both” but
he had noticed the same
pattern, but also, these young women
had the aneurysm in the same area of the same artery!
Fascinating, right???? He wants to start
a study on the topic soon, and we are going to be a part of it!
The thought of being a part of a study that no one else has really looked at is weird and exciting!
Needless to say, I have come
to the belief that making changes based on evidence can be
exciting. I think that one of the biggest contributors
to making it exciting is to pick a subject that you are passionate about
or at least interested in. I think that makes all the difference
in the world, when the subject is going to stimulate your mind and
peaks your interest. My advice to you.
as you begin your research is to stay organized.
When your literature starts pouring out at the seams, you
aren’t going to remember who said what, or what study proved what
so keep an organized system, like an annotated bibliography or
literature matrix. My next piece of advice
would be to do a little every day. When you do your research in chunks,
you lose your momentum and sometimes you lose track of good ideas that you might have had.
And because I learned the hard way, my BIGGEST piece of advice, is
to back up your data 3 times! Your computer, external drive and
an online back up should become a rule of thumb for you.
And.....that is the end of my presentation.
Good luck to you in your research!