Kaplan University
July 16, 2013
Unit 6 Critiquing Qualitative and Quantitative Research
The research conducted by Foster-Fitzpatrick, Ortiz, Sibilano, Marcantonio and Braun (1999) is a quantitative study of the significance of crossing the legs while blood pressure is being measured. The purpose of the research was to determine whether leg-crossing impacted the results of blood pressure measurements. The research conducted by Palese, Skrap, Fachin, Visioli and Zannini (2008) is a qualitative study of the subjective data collected from patients who experienced while-awake craniotomies.
Identification of Design
Quantitative Research Article Design
The design chosen for this research was a pretest-posttest design, the quasi-experimental design, for answering the research problem, “Does crossing the leg during blood pressure measurement effect on the patient’s blood pressure reading?” Crossing the leg is the manipulation, as the independent variable, and the patient’s blood pressure is the dependent variable. This design is appropriate for this research problem because it is the method available for testing the hypothesis of cause-and-effect relationships between two variables in this study (Polit & Beck, 2012).
Qualitative Research Article Design
The design for this research was a descriptive phenomenology study. This was clearly identified “a phenomenology study was conducted with the purpose of describing the human experience of patients undergoing awake craniotomy.” (Palese, et. al., 2008 p. 167).
Critique of Design
Quantitative Critique of Design Article
The research question concerns a possible causal relationship between the independent and dependent variable. Crossing the leg is the manipulation, as the independent variable, and the patient’s blood pressure is the dependent variable. The study illustrates the limitation of the quasi-experimental design is lack of randomization which
References: Foster-Fitzpatrick, L., Ortiz, A., Sibilano, H., Marcantonio, R., & Braun, L. T. (1999). The effects of crossed leg on blood pressure measurement. Nursing Research 48(2), 105-108. Palese, A., Skrap, M., Fachin, M., Visioli, S., & Zannini, L. (2008). The experience of patients undergoing awake craniotomy. Cancer Nursing 31(2), 166-172. Polit, D. & Beck, C. (2012). Nursing Research: Generating and Assessing Evidence for Nursing Practice. (9th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. T Marshall, A. Anantharachagan, K Choudhary, C Chue and I Kaur, (2002) A randomized controlled trial of the effect of anticipation of a blood test on blood pressure Journal of Human Hypertension (2002) 16, 621 – 625. Retrieved from: http://www.nature.com/jhh/journal/v16/n9