Conflict Management and Occupational Therapy Students - Essay Example

Research in the Health Professions Quantitative Research Article Review Guide Spring Article Reviewer: Jonathan Alonso APA Citation for article: Landa-Gonzalez, B. (2008). To assert or not to assert: Conflict management and occupational therapy student. Informa Healthcare, 22(4), 54-70. Introduction/Problem/Research Plan Title This article exploits quantitative research methods to cover assertive and non assertive methods of conflict management among occupational therapy students while undertaking their learning. The title “To Assert or Not to Assert: Conflict Management and Occupational Therapy Students” covers fully the objectives of the study. At a glance, a reader will come to terms with the topic that it covers conflict management methods among groups of occupational therapy students. However, the topic does not give any indication whether the study would consider any variables, like age, gender or marital status. This is because conflicts arise depending on variables. Therefore, one can say that although the topic has clarity in stating the possible objectives of the study, it leaves curiosity among readers regarding the variables the study employs. The reason why this is a setback for the article is that a quantitative research must have variables. Abstract This is where the reader is to get a brief summary of the study. The abstract of this study is quite clear. It gives a brief summary and objectives of the study question. Further, it gives a summary of the methods used in the study and outlines the procedure in brief. It goes on to give conclusion of the study and summarizes the study results succinctly. It also gives the relevance of the study in real occupational therapy situation. However, the abstract does not give any limitations of the study, since it is rare to come across a study/research that lacks limitations. With this, the reader is likely to come across new information and personal conclusion after reading the article. The article could have at least included the limitations of the study in the abstract section. Introduction The introduction starts by giving a brief background about the field of study. It provides various situational analyses revolving around the study question, which is about conflicts among students in the field of occupational therapy. Further, it clarifies contextual and situational settings of the subjects, and ends up giving the study thesis introducing methodology and theoretical framework that the study applies. With this, the introduction is quite clear. Problem development This is where the author gives a clear understanding of the topic of research. First, the article starts by explaining reasons for the study necessity. This is in the introduction section. Further, it gives the central aim of the study and explains its unique literature by using APA citations to give their sources. The reader finds the research question and the study hypothesis in this section. This section also gives the theoretical literature that the study applies. To further give clarity to the reader, this article outlines general background of the research subjects and the methodology. There is proper systemization that links the study objectives to the subjects and its conclusion directly. This shows proper development of the research problems and elucidative framing of the study questions. Conceptual and Theoretical Framework A research must have a theoretical section where the researcher provides guidelines on how to carry out the research. Therefore, for any research article to be complete, there must be a relevant theoretical framework. Here, the author indicates the concepts and theoretical aspects in the study. This section explains the reason for choosing to apply particular theories. Further, it gives the practical advantages of using particular theories. This section reviews all the literature in the study and in the theory section. For instance, it explains the meaning of the term “conflict” and “conflict management”. The only hindrance to proper understanding for the reader is that the author has not given this section its own subheading to indicate its presence. This is the main weakness of this study; the author does not give this section a subheading. There are also proper citations of literature in this section. Methods Under this section, the article clarifies the methodology in the study. The reader gets to understand the methods that the research applies. Through this, the reader will get to understand how the research got to the particular results, findings and conclusions. Under this section, the author has used subheading to clarify each requirement of the study. Variables/subjects This is a quantitative research article, and it must have variables and subjects. The subjects are students and the article uses the subjects’ characteristics like gender and age as variables of the study. First, it gives the reader an understanding of how the research selected its subjects: through volunteering by occupational therapy students. It also gives a brief description of the subjects, their levels of learning and how they get categorized to come up with the variables. It gives the size of the samples and their ages. Research design Under this section, the article tells the reader of the design the study applies. It reveals that the research uses a non randomized design using two groups: traditional and nontraditional students. This was after obtaining approval from the institutions concerned. It also tells the reader that the research administers a questionnaire to the subjects after administration of the MODE, in consideration of the time. Sample The article clearly clarifies that the samples in the study were randomly selected from volunteers among occupational therapy students. It says that recruitment was purely voluntary without any sort of infringement on individual or institutional rights. The article gives that number of samples as 145, 55 being traditional and 90 being nontraditional students. Here, a reader gets a clear description of the samples/ participants. The participants had information concerning the study in advance, though none had information regarding the nature of the conflict approaches. None among the samples had prior training in conflict resolution. The sample selection method is suitable since the study design is also randomized. Just to get enough results for analysis, and bearing in mind that the method involves random sampling, the number of samples was just enough. Further, the article shows the data collection method, application of MODE instrument to collect various data from the subjects. The suitability of the instrument is in explaining the differences between the samples; the article clarifies the possibility of confirming the hypothesis, as the author indicates in the article. Procedures The article clarifies the procedures that the research applies. First, it gives the settings of the study and explains that the samples were in their respective learning institutions. The research applied a research method that will allow for future investigation since it was about changing fields. Because the study required continuing students in the field on occupational therapy, the article tells the reader that the samples were in their respective institutions, which was appropriate since conflicts and their resolutions can only be understood while in the field. The article also outlines the way data is collected from the subjects by using the MODE instrument and questionnaires. This was after obtaining permission from the respective institution boards. Furthermore, the students/subjects had consented to the study. Instrumentation The article reveals that the research uses the MODE as an instrument, which is seemingly self reporting and very appropriate since the study was mainly cognitive in nature. Therefore, the reader has no doubt about the results, since the instrument can quantify them accurately and report the outcomes. It helped in identification of the behavioral responses of dealing with conflicts among students. Further, the article says that the content and result validity of the instrument was sufficient. Besides, the instrument did not require any specialization before use. This confirms its appropriateness. Analysis Being a quantitative research, the author reports that study uses variables to analyze the results. In the analysis, it clarifies the dependent and independent variables as conflict management modes and student type respectively. Further, this section outlines the kind of tests the research uses to analyze the results. The research applies the non parametric chi square tests for assessing of student conflict management significances and preferences. The article identifies all the tests and their significance to the study. Others include descriptive statistics, which the study used for profile establishment. Results The article is very clear in this section. Here, it gives the outcomes of the study regarding the two groups of students with respect to other minor variables like gender, traditional or nontraditional. It goes on to explain the preferences that the article indicates as the study questions. In this section, the study further uses tables to explain all the behavioral outcomes under subheadings that suit each. The results give a thorough understanding of conflicts among different types of occupational therapy students. It also gives other factors revolving around conflicts that might affect conflict management. In overall, the article covers this section well and elaborately. Conclusions/Discussion/Limitations/Implications It is clear from the article that this section gives a clear link between the research findings and the research question. Hence, it confirms the hypothesis of the study. Further, this section appraises the research method used and reveals the consistency in the results with other researches done using other methods. Generally, this section summarizes the study giving advantages of the methodology and the challenges and their effects on the results. It further gives the implications of the study to the field of learning. It ends up by giving limitations of the study. Overall evaluation The study has research questions that it, eventually, answers. This may be useful for continuing education students in occupational therapy across all ages. The article seeks literature in the field of occupational therapy to elucidate the nature and resolution of conflicts among students. Although it may have some shortcomings here and there, this article is well written and will make readers seek and read more articles by the author because it covers practical issues regarding quantitative research conflict management among occupational therapy students. Read More