Exam 17: Measurement Methods Used in Developing Evidence-Based Practice

A researcher plans to administer a valid research tool in another language. What must be done in order to establish its validity in the second language?

Why is the visual analog scale (VAS) used so frequently in healthcare research?

A nurse believes that patient acuity is a poor measure of patient fragility. Consequently, this nurse and another nurse construct an instrument that measures patient fragility. Of the various steps of scale testing, conceptual definition, scale construction, instrument validation, and qualitative exploration, in what order should these occur?

Which of the following would be non-physiological measures that could be used in nursing research?

A researcher is interested in discovering whether the topics of written family complaints are shared by the majority of patients' families in a major university hospital, or whether merely a minority of the patients' families are disgruntled. The researcher goes throughout the hospital each day and hands family members a printed form and pencil and asks them to answer the 10 questions, all of which have three to five responses, in return for a "$3 off" coupon to be used in the hospital cafeteria. What is this printed form called?

In an observational study of manifestations of various categories of sundowning behavior in hospitalized super-elders, which of the following are true?

A Canadian researcher has had a tool published in English. The tool examines the embedded meanings of life in a country that has colonial roots but still maintains allegiance to the mother country. There is a demand for use of the tool in French-speaking Canadian cities. Which is the type of translation that is most appropriate for this tool?

How would a rating scale item be worded?

Preexistent databases used in nursing research for secondary analysis contain data of different sorts. What are these?

The principal disadvantages of administering open-ended questions are which of the following?

The principal advantages of using a subject's diary either instead of interview data, or to supplement interview data, would be which of the following?

A university that is publicly funded is located in a state that is experiencing serious budget shortfall, and the budget has been halved. The university's 32 departments are asked to list each of their programs on an index card, resulting in 90 cards. A panel comprised of the president, provost, and five deans each independently arranges the cards into categories of 3 essential, 7 highly desirable, 15 very desirable, 40 mainstream, 15 expendable, 7 immediately expendable, and 3 targeted elimination. This is an example of which methodology?

A researcher isn't sure whether 60-year-old women, the target population of the research, will understand the wording of a questionnaire's 50 items assessing knowledge of symptoms of myocardial infarction in women. Consequently, the researcher might logically decide to do which of the following?

In a study of teasing among third-graders, after an intervention on peer interactions, behavioral observers collect the data, rating six behaviors on a 0- to 4-point scale. The observers are not trained by the same person, and there is no measure of interrater reliability. What is likely to happen?

Choose the true statements regarding the disadvantages of observational methods.

Which of the following are direct measures?

A researcher creates a new instrument to be used in a study of new graduate registered nurses' transition to practice. The instrument contains 20 items which are statements followed by four answer options, as follows: (1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree, (3) agree, (4) strongly agree. Some of the items on the survey are worded positively (e.g., "Most days, I feel like I know what I am doing"), and some are worded negatively (e.g., "I feel bullied by my peers."). What survey strategies are reflected in this design?

Which of the following constructs would be inappropriate to measure with a visual analog scale?

A researcher plans to conduct interviews with the first four participants in a qualitative study, and then the researcher plans to have an assistant conduct several interviews, for the remainder of the interviews. The first thing the researcher does with the research participants is to perform a pilot interview on one participant and to have the assistant conduct a pilot interview on a different participant, and then they compare notes, discussing the process. Why is this a good idea?

An outpatient being treated in the infusion center for thalassemia is asked to fill out a form about satisfaction with the center, while the patient waits for the appointment. The form consists of five questions, each a statement, with six possibilities after it: Strongly Agree, Agree, Slightly Agree, Slightly Disagree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree. What is the best description of these questions?