5. Materiales y Métodos
5.5. Aislamiento y análisis de ácidos nucleicos
further support to a consideration of sign- off mentors as the mentor population to be interviewed in the study. This would ensure that data were collected from mentors who had sufficient experience and practice in student assessment (Sarantakos 2005, Flick 2009, Ritchie et al 2014). Equally if all respondents were ‘expert’ then it might
strengthen the possibility of being able to tease out the nature of decision making for a specific group rather than having significant variability in the participant interview group which might limit any inferences drawn from the data (Watson 1994, Cioffi 1998, Hicks et al 2003).
From this review it became clear that to understand mentors thoughts and practices a predominantly qualitative approach would be required for the study (Brown 2000, Paliadelis & Cruickshank 2003, Duffy 2006). In terms of methods, qualitative interviews would be capable of obtaining in-depth information from mentors
knowledgeable and experienced in making decisions regarding student competence and thus address SRQs 1, 2 & 3. Combining interviews and the use of student
documentation as data collection methods would enable a fuller understanding not only of the factors underpinning mentor judgements but also the processes of decision making that mentors undertake (PRQ). In addition it was clear that there was also a role for the adoption of a quantitative element to the study in terms of data collection (McCarthy & Murphy 2008) and some quantitative handling of qualitative data (Brown 2000). Furthermore analysis of data through a process of content analysis (Brown 2000, Paliadelis & Cruickshank 2003, Duffy 2006) and descriptive statistics (Brown 2000, McCarthy & Murphy 2008) was demonstrated as capable of addressing the research questions that I wished to consider.
3.2.2 Nursing decision making studies influential in the development of the methodology and methods
Having reached this stage, the design of studies investigating nursing decision making were then considered. At the time of selecting the methodology and study design only five studies reviewed made use of a quantitative approach. Four of these were large surveys to investigate decision making models used by nurses and the relationship to
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areas of practice (Hughes & Young 1990, Lauri & Salenterä 1998, Lauri et al 2001, Hicks et al 2008). The final study used an experimental design to compare decisions made by novices, intermediates and experts in assessments of post-operative pain in children (Hamers et al 1997). Reviewing these studies reinforced the view that a qualitative approach was the most appropriate to address my research questions. A further small group of quantitative studies used designs based on Judgement Analysis (Cooksey 1996), to explore nurses’ judgements. Using multiple case scenarios,variables of information were manipulated and the judgements made subjected to regression analysis to calculate Brunswik lens model equations to understand which cues nurses use and their relative importance (Thompson et al 2007, Thompson et al 2008, Yang & Thompson 2011). The notion of cues considered and weighting attached to them underpinned explanations for the variations noticed in the decisions taken. However, given the state of current knowledge regarding mentor decision making I did not consider it possible to construct multiple scenarios or identify the significant
variables to manipulate, in order to examine their effect on a mentor’s judgement.
Qualitative studies formed the majority of the decision making literature reviewed with studies falling into two groups: studies which were descriptive or exploratory in nature, and studies which made use of a ‘Think Aloud’ technique. The latter is often associated with verbal protocol analysis, a method widely used within psychology to explore the ‘thinking’ processes used when people are engaged in cognitive tasks (Ericsson & Simon 1993, Aitken et al 2011, Fox et al 2011, Ritchie et al 2014). ‘Think Aloud’ is a qualitative data collection method where participants are instructed to think aloud, verbalise their ‘inner speech’, normally while completing an activity; the belief being that this process of verbalisation is capable of providing detailed information of the concurrent reasoning processes in use (Ericsson & Simon 1980, Charters 2003, Aitken et al 2011). From the full range of studies reviewed the significant decision making studies influencing the study design are presented in Table 4.
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Study Data collection
methods
Nature of cases Data Analysis approach Descriptive / exploratory studies
Manias et al 2004 Participant observation
Then Semi-structured interviews
Real world cases in practice
Content Analysis
Burton & Hope 2005 Retrospective semi- structured interviews concerning documented cases Documented real world cases in practice Content Analysis
Hedberg & Larsson 2003
Non-participant observation then semi-structured interviews
Real world cases in practice
Inductive content analysis
Cheyne et al 2006 Focus group interviews
Generic cases from focus group members practice
Latent content analysis
Hancock & Easen 2006
Participant observation then semi-structured interviews
Real world cases in practice
Content analysis & category comparison between observation / interview data Dowding et al 2009 Non-participant observation then semi-structured interviews
Real world cases in practice
Thematic Content analysis
‘Think Aloud’ studies
Cioffi & Markham 1997
Think Aloud interviews
Simulated
assessment situations based on actual case studies
Verbal protocol analysis
Cioffi 1998 Think Aloud interviews
Simulated cases Verbal protocol analysis Offredy 1998 Think Aloud
interviews
Simulated cases Verbal protocol analysis Simmons et al 2003 Think Aloud
interviews
Real world cases in practice
Verbal protocol analysis Twycross & Powls
2006
Think aloud interviews
Simulated cases Verbal protocol analysis Goransson et al 2008 Think Aloud
interviews
Simulated cases Deductive content analysis of verbal protocols
Hoffman et al 2009 Think Aloud interviews
Real world cases in practice
Verbal protocol analysis
Table 4: Overview of qualitative studies investigating nursing decision making Across the two groups data collection methods fell into three categories:
1. Interviews (usually individual face to face), normally semi-structured or with a series of prompts, informed by the principles of protocol analysis. Think Aloud interviews were either used concurrently, at the point when the decision was being taken, or retrospectively after a decision had been taken.