Exam 27: Disseminating Research Findings

The results of an applied research study for anxiety management in children were published in both a highly respected nursing research journal and in a second journal specific to pediatrics that focuses on practice issues. The first article contained detailed statistical analyses and discussions of the results, as an extension of the author's previous basic research. The second presented the research in much simpler language, providing pictures of the children and discussing nursing practice applications. Why does this or does this not represent duplicate publication?

Which of the following represent poor scholarly writing and, consequently, should not appear as they are written in a journal article?

A graduate student states, in a master's thesis, that "despite public awareness programs to educate the public about the safety of pediatric immunizations, a staunch core of highly educated and well-informed parents continues to attribute the rise in childhood autism to vaccination. Because of this, recent efforts have been brought to bear in the qualitative arena, attempting to identify and isolate factoids and half-truths that perpetuate the myth. Nonetheless, mostly because belief structures appear bound by geography, not enough is known about reasons that some clusters of parents postpone or avoid vaccination." The quotation is an example of a(n) ___________ and appears in the ____________ section of the research report.

A master's thesis uses Husserlian phenomenology as its method. In the research report, the student has mentioned the method by name and has adhered to all of the tenets of that method. The thesis advisor requires the student to include in the thesis a 2- to 5-page summary of the philosophy of Husserlian phenomenology. Why does the thesis advisor require this?

A researcher presents the results of a recent research project at several conferences. Duplicate publications are not acceptable and represent self-plagiarism, but duplicate presentations seem valued. Which of the following facts explains this?

"All subjects were asked whether they would be willing to participate in this descriptive study, while they waited to be seen by a gastroenterologist, prior to their initial colonoscopies. They were given basic information about the research, and told that participation was strictly voluntary, according to guidelines from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for the clinics and hospital. The research had been approved as minimal risk by the IRB. All 31 subjects were asked to participate agreed to do so." The researcher should include information about this process in which section of the manuscript?

In which parts of the research report could the reader find the one most important result of the study?

Prior to conducting a grounded theory study, in which 11 women undergoing radiation for breast cancer were interviewed multiple times, the researchers conducted a pilot study in which they interviewed three women every 2 weeks from the time radiation was planned until 4 weeks after it was completed. The purpose for the pilot study was to refine the interview instrument and to discover whether women would be willing to be interviewed this frequently about such a private topic. The pilot was not published separately. In the institutional review board application, the researcher indicated an intent to include information in the research report about the three women in the pilot study-what going through the process of radiation therapy was like for them-in addition to the 11 main study women. In this case, if the findings from the women in the pilot were not included in the Methods section, where would the information about the process of going through radiation therapy obtained from the pilot study women be included?

A journal states on its editorial page, "A query letter is required before article submission to this refereed journal. If a manuscript is requested, both hard copy and an electronic copy will be required. After initial acknowledgement of receipt, authors will receive a response from the editor within 4 months." What does this statement mean?

What are the proper components of a query letter?

What part of the research report names the study design?

"Thomason's set-point theorizations explain, in part, why patients in chemotherapy who reported high levels of apprehension and anxiety prior to initiation invariably reported more severe average symptomatology levels. In addition, their symptoms were ameliorated less completely by standard therapeutic interventions, such as antiemetics and soporifics." Where in the research report would this quotation be located?

"Lazarus' coping paradigm suggests that it is the appraisal of a stressor as potentially harmful that begins the avoidance cascade. Thomason further characterized adaptation to management of chemotherapy symptomatology as mere reflections of a primary appraisal of potential harm, providing a set point for intensity of reactions. We used these conceptual connections to formulate testable assumptions for this study." Where in the research report would this quotation be located?

What should an abstract for quantitative research contain?

There are several steps in the process of converting a master's thesis into a publishable article: selecting a journal, writing a query letter, preparing an original manuscript, submitting the manuscript for review, and performing the revisions the editor indicates. Why should preparation of the manuscript not occur first?

Which of the following are considered poor scholarly writing and, consequently, should not appear in a published research report?

What are the advantages of presenting a poster session, displayed for 2 hours a day for 3 days at a well-attended conference, instead of a 15-minute verbal presentation with 5-minute question period, at a breakout session?

In the Results section of a thesis measuring the effectiveness on a geriatric ward of using a procedure room for all painful procedures including IV starts, a master's student lists the four principal study findings, one by one, following each with an explanation of how each finding contributes to nursing knowledge. The major thesis advisor directs the student to fix this in the second draft of the thesis. Why does the thesis advisor require this?

What part of the research report may present potential applications of the findings in practice?

There was a research gap before the study was performed. The study results filled the research gap. In what part of the research report would the research gap be identified? In what part of the research report would the researcher's strategy for filling the research gap be reported?