Proposal for Implementing Computer-assisted Instruction (CAI) With IBMs SPSS Research Analysis - Article Example

? Proposal for Implementing Computer-assisted Instruction (CAI) With IBM’s SPSS Research Analysis Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Goals 2 Needs2 Benefits 3 Institutional Readiness 3 Introduction 4 Background 4 A Sample Research Example 6 Outline of How Project Will Assist Needs 9 Survey Development Process 10 The SPSS Program Development 10 SPSS Training Program 11 Proposal Budget for IBM SPSS 15 Conclusion 17 Appendix: Full Budget Table 19 References 20 Executive Summary There is a need for a sustainable online program which helps nurses and doctors who want to do research, to learn the finer points of efficient scientific analysis as part of designing their research studies. The program referred to here in this proposal will utilize IBM’s SPSS analysis program but will be designed to assist those in the medical community to learn how to create analysis structures that are specific to the medical field (Bridgewater, 2008). Goals: Create a sustainable learning program that moves seamlessly from one step to the next and shows how selections of criteria in research analysis requests within the program will affect the analysis results. Build the program instruction component in three to four levels so that a nurse could learn the first level all the way through the program in order to do preliminary analysis. This allows for a basic foundation to be established before moving on to the next level of learning. Provided self-testing components for medical personnel to review what they learned in each module per level as part of the reinforcement in learning opportunities (Bridgewater, 2008). Needs: It has become more evident that nurses and doctors, in particular, require a constant updating of research skills and this program will assist them to review the latest methods of analysis currently operating within the analysis fields. This program will be constantly updated through the IBM website and training modules and levels will also be upgraded accordingly. Medical personnel have limited funds to access such a program on their own and by having the hospital invest in the program itself, this allows for ongoing access to analysis training and implementation on many levels for different sections of our medical teams (Bridgewater, 2008). Benefits: Medical personnel will be able to access this program from their homes by signing into the hospital’s dedicated intranet, designed by IBM, in order to learn analysis components at their will. This program training course will also provide a certification of completion for each level which will be added to the personnel records as part of skillset development on the job. As an additional benefit, there will also be a four-level survey development program added which will train medical personnel on how to efficiently design surveys to maximize the full potential of information gathering from responders in any given research program. This ensures that money spent for research studies are utilized in the most efficient manner possible. This component will utilize Survey Monkey, an online program which gives returns in a number of formats, such as Microsoft Excel, which can then be downloaded into SPSS easily and efficiently. There will also be a process component which shows how to format the Excel data for easy recognition in SPSS during the analysis training sections (Bridgewater, 2008). Institutional Readiness: The hospital has reached a point where adding on research capabilities that benefit its medical staff, will propel the hospital forward as a leader in the research community, both nationally and internationally. This is a bonus for the hospital to be able to charge those medical personnel from the outside who wish to learn research analysis skills as part of their own training progress. For current hospital medical personnel, including medical students and interns, this program will be free (Bridgewater, 2008). Introduction Every field in the human sciences requires a certain amount of analysis as part of evidence-based research. There are a number of software programs available to conduct analysis such as Microsoft’s Excel, Minitab, R, STATS, and others but IBM’s SPSS program has been identified as one of the most extensive programs available to scientific researchers on the market. As many of our nurses at this hospital are in the field of Informatics and /or research, utilizing the IBM SPSS program, along with a learning program, would be of great benefit for those who can assist in additional research in the field of nursing medicine. Accordingly, the hospital has also recognized the value of an efficient training program to help nurses learn this program on their own time. The IBM website has a training session of its own but it is laborious and there would be a more efficient way of training nurses to conduct their research analysis but developing a program geared towards the nursing field. Background During a nursing student’s training, very little emphasis is given on how to work with a statistics analysis program while conducting a research program. In many cases, research studies that are conducted on various health issues require that a professional analyst be hired to conduct the analysis gathered during a study. However, in many cases, an analyst is hired who does not have a medical background and is, therefore, not fully equipped to help with designing the study, including the initial survey (Ahn et al, 2007) It is very important that research studies be developed and analyzed to their fullest capabilities and this requires that nurses know analysis skills almost as well as any professional analyst in order to design surveys and obtain results that can be documented and passed along to the medical community. This is especially true for those medical professionals such as nurses and doctors who must have research available in order to make decisions on the types of solutions to provide to their patients (Ahn et al, 2007). Ahn et al (2007) designed a research project done in 2003 which was to find out how graduating medical students viewed their education and how they also viewed research as part of their syllabus and what they perceived as good or not so good within their educational process. As an example, the term “physician-scientist” is viewed as an MD whose primary professional activity is performing research. The response was 59% agreed that this was a correct model. However, 41% disagreed and 15% had no opinion. In another question, responders were asked if, in order to be successful, one had to spend more than 50% of one’s time as a researcher or clinician to get the job done. The response here was that 74.4% viewed this as true of medical researchers but only 30.9% viewed this as true for clinical practitioners. Fig.1(Ahn et al, 2007, 638) As Ahn et al (2007) points out in his study however, the physician-scientist is best equipped to make the connections between research and clinical practice but should also performs those duties he or she is most capable in performing, whether it be clinical or research. While this is only a small part of determinations within this research study, it is important to note that Ahn et al (2007) also determined that while the majority of students are satisfied with their education, those in graduate years have the most difficulty. Mentors and leaders of these programs should be made aware of this and be made ready to assist those in need so there is less loss of students who may not get enough help (Ahn et al, 2007). Along these lines, the idea of providing a statistical program of the highest quality that students and professionals may freely utilize while at this hospital, along with a structured process of learning statistical analysis at one’s leisure, is an important value for those currently involved in research and those who may chose at a later date, to move into research analysis (Ahn et al, 2007). Providing educational access to those who wish to move into areas other than currently practicing in should have the ability to take on advanced educational opportunities which are made available to them at the hospital. Continuing medical advances in all areas of medical practice require an ongoing process of medical research so that others may benefit from the information uncovered (Young 2010). At the heart of this is the patient who is the largest beneficiary of medical research, whether through laboratory analysis or through research studies that is being continuously conducted on all facets of known medical illnesses. A Sample Research Example Young (2010) conducted a research project which was an overview of a number of studies on HPV and the willingness of responders to accept the vaccine in the Asian Pacific regions. Of 60 studies reviewed, 18 met the criteria she was looking for, all of which were qualitative and quantitative. Her intent was to determine respondents’ perceptions about HPV as presented by these research studies and to also evaluate the perception of the HPV vaccine which had been on the market two to three years by the time she conducted this study. What she did find most notable about her research projects was the lack of advanced analysis infrastructures within the projects. Out of those 18 she chose, only four actually contained detailed analysis (Young, 2010). Young’s research is an excellent example of research design in criteria development, search terminology and corresponding results as determined initially through the abstracts and further followed through in the actual research projects. Below is a picture of a diagram for her preliminary research structure. Fig.2(Young, 2010). As Young delved deeper into the research studies, she also created tables of different aspects of each research study such as one created by Country, Authors, Year, Method of Research, Responder Count and the ages of the responders. The table below shows the breakout of information (Young, 2010). Fig 3(Young,2010, 642) The rest of her study also breaks down the information into more refined tables and provides a lot of information. One important note she made in her review was the need to add on more ‘multivariate analytic techniques’ to research studies. In this respect, many of the research studies were somewhat limited as a consequence (Young, 2010). Subsequently, there is a case to be made for medical personnel involved in research to understand fully how a program such as IBM’s SPSS works and how different methods of analysis as provided by SPSS could be used to find more details within any research project. A medical nurse or doctor already knows the business of medicine and adding on the strength of expert analysis procedures also equips the medical doctor/nurse researcher to devise more intricate surveys and research studies in such a manner as to be able to define and analyze many different variables instead of just basic normal perspectives. This adds far more value to the research process altogether. As an additional component, although this could be controversial, if data from research projects could also be obtained, aside from the analysis already provided, this would allow future researchers to conduct different analysis on older research and make comparisons to newer research data. What would need to be observed is the confidentiality of the research data. Names, and other personal identifying data, would need to be taken out and replaced with a simple responder number. Only the original researcher would know who was who and this would be covered by the Privacy Rule of 2003 (HIPPA, 2003). Outline of How Project Will Assist Needs Nurses, who have such busy schedules, may not have time to weed through a statistical program such as the one set up by IBM but if a training program is set up in such a way as to provide the basic level first, along with walk-through examples for applying this knowledge, then nurses will be able to work the training online as their schedule allows. There will also be other levels of the training attached to each component which allows the nurse to delve in deeper as the skill sets are learned along the way. There will also be the additional learning modules for designing appropriate surveys to maximize the gathering of data and procedures for downloading and transferring into suitable formats for SPSS analysis. Survey Development Process (Survey Monkey, 2012) Module I: Determining Your Goals for Research Module II: Understanding Survey Construction in a Linear Format Module III: Extending Survey Design for Offshoot Questionnaires For surveys that require moving a responder to another part of the survey and utilizing different questions (qualifying process) Module IV: Downloading Responses and Formatting Data This includes moving data into Excel, creating crosstabs, use of pivot tables. Moving data into SPSS (Zikmund, 1999). The SPSS Program Development The IBM SPSS system will be set up on IBM’s cloud service and will be maintained by IBM’s service center. Maintenance will include daily backups and easy upgrades to the program. The SPSS program will contain all available extensions added in for maximum utilization of analysis infrastructures. As IBM will have full control of the cloud space and the program set up, this relieves the hospital’s IT group from having another major job on their hands (IBM Analytics, 2012). This will also save quite a bit of money on having to purchase more server space and salary output on maintaining extra servers. With an infinite storage space on IBM’s cloud service, this also allows users to work there rather than on the hospital’s service which could potentially cause an overload. There will be a set of rules in using data research as any data with proprietary data identification such as names of responders, will need to be removed first before the data can be worked with on the IBM cloud. This ensures against compromising responders and required confidentiality regulations should there ever be a hacker attack on IBM’s company’s websites and servers. It will be important to outline each module and each plan with its goal of learning objectives. Each part of the building of plans and modules should be tested thoroughly as each piece is put together. It must also have the ability to be changed once in place as new components are added over time to enhance the learning. Ease of use on a cloud service should also be tested to make sure that all processes are seamless and functioning properly (Bradley, 2011, 198). SPSS Training Program The training modules will begin with a discussion of terminology in statistical analysis and provide descriptions plus examples of how they apply within a statistical operation. The following modules will concentrate on different components of the program and what can be done for each section. As noted before, there will be at least three levels which will be called Beginners, Advanced and Expert. Each level addresses the same components as regards the module name, but becomes more detailed with each level, utilizing examples of more advanced operations within statistical analysis. The beginning plans will also show why certain parameters must be checked when running analysis and what each return represents accordingly. There will be four lesson plans for each module so as to fully cover each subject. Each lesson plan within a module will contain a self-test questionnaire at the end which is for personal use only. Users may take this test or else move on to the next plan within the module. The layout of the menu will make it easy for those who need a quick refresher in only one area to find exactly what they need. Also searching by index will take them right to the module and plan which provides the information they are looking for. In the first year of bringing this program onboard, there will be surveys conducted of users to identify weaknesses in the program and to understand the level of expertise a user had before taking the training and what it was after taking the training. There will also be a preliminary testing period before the program’s rollout to make sure that all the components work properly, links are active and accurate, and feedback on each plan within each module will be requested of the testers. It is likely that this survey link will stay in place so that future users can note what areas they really did not understand or for which there was not enough detail provided within the instruction plan. The menu and index will look somewhat similar to IBM’s help section for the SPSS program as shown below (IBM SPSS Help Online, 2011). IBM’s SPSS Menu Arrangement Fig.4 (IBM SPSS Help Online, 2011) The examples used in the training program will be from actual medical research studies to make it easier for the research practitioner to relate the process to his or her own situation and needs. The following picture shows a module that is opened up to show the plans for that training session. Training Modules with Opened Plans Fig.5 (IBM SPSS Help Online, 2011) Sample files for using during IBM’s own training session for SPSS are provided as part of the learning process and will be made available for those who wish to go through that specific training first before moving on the medical version which will be created through IBM in partnership with selected research doctors currently working with this hospital. These files are found in the directory where IBM maintains its SPSS program and a link will be provided to access these files as well as those used from medical research. All file extensions have the *.sav after it. Sample SPSS practice files are named accidents.sav, adl.sav, demo.sav and so forth. Each file is utilized for a specific training plan (IBM SPSS Help Online, 2012). A picture below shows what the SPSS interface looks like in data mode. IBM’s SPSS Data Interface Fig.6 (IBM SPSS Help Online, 2011) There are numerous types of analysis that can be conducted within SPSS such as obtaining Pearson’s correlation coefficient by selecting the appropriate boxes under ANALYZE and CORRELATIONS in order to get the following return. Fig 7(Field, 2009, 178) This next picture shows some of the internal process of configuring analysis before running the procedure. Using Functions in Expressions Fig.8 (IBM SPSS Help Online, 2011) Proposal Budget for IBM SPSS The IBM SPSS program is fairly expensive when all the add-ons that come with it are applied as well. However, it is necessary to provide these as many of them are utilized within research data analysis. IBM will also provide design services geared specifically towards the medical research field to assist in the ease of conducting analysis. A sample table is provided below for pricing on the full SPSS program, additional design on the program and the cost of cloud services over a year. IBM SPSS Project Cost IBM SPSS Statistics Premium Concurrent User License + SW Subscription & Support 12 Months (D0EJLL). $38,300.00 Personalization and development of SPSS program by IBM Specialists $15,000.00 Annual Cloud Service Fee $5,000.00 Total Costs $58,300.00 Table 1 Budget For the Survey Monkey design section, there will be the design services and the annual fee for maintaining an account. This will require the Platinum Account level which costs $780 per year. The design services are currently rated at $15 per question with a minimum of $500 per session. Therefore, an account will be made for which an annual fee of $20,000.00 will be deposited for design purposes. This allows our researchers to not be hampered by cost problems and each survey will be accompanied by the billing for design services (Survey Monkey, 2012, Web). Questionnaires and surveys must have the ability to move from one part of the question to another question, depending on the answer provided. There are multiple choices, single choice questions, and text boxes for long text responses. This is especially important in being able to gather these text questions and be able to categorize them into data numbers so that they can be put in with the rest of the analysis. There is also the ability to use HTML for individual design of lettering and other parts of a question. Survey design is essential (Survey Monkey, 2012, Web). Survey Monkey Budget Full Service Plan for Survey Access ($65.00 monthly x12) $780.00 Additional Survey Design Accessibility $20,000.00 Total Survey Monkey Fees $20,780.00 Table 2 Budget Extra fees are also included with this budget which will represent the input of medical research personnel (nurses, doctors) who assist with the design development in all areas such as survey development for the program and IBM special design. There is also a salary available for two to four Customer Help Associates who will be available for helping those utilizing the program. This can be for phone services, online chat assistance and for questions by email. The following table represents the miscellaneous costs. Miscellaneous Fees Research Development by staff (1 nurse, 1 doctor) @$6,000 each $12,000.00 Salary for Full-time Customer Service Help desk @$18,000.00 each x 4 (May become optional) $$72,000.00 Total Fees for Miscellaneous $84,000.00 Table 3 Budget These are the proposed costs for this project at this time. There may be adjustments made in the future depending on the needs of operators of this program. There is also a proposed fee of outside users who may have access to this program for one year at a time with an access fee of $1,000.00 per year which will help to defray costs over time (Survey Monkey Web, 2012). Conclusion In today’s business and educational world, utilizing an online program which allows a non-student person to move at one’s own pace is most beneficial for picking up new skills and for making contributions to developing this program further. More and more people are obtaining online degrees and are therefore, familiar with programs such as will be developed here (Domenic, n.d., 3). Medical research specialists will benefit greatly from the combination of an online survey education in research design and from having access to Survey Monkey for their own research processes. The IBM SPSS program, with all its add-ons and those parts specifically designed to address the medical researcher, will be a great benefit for both the researchers and for this hospital and its patients who will be the beneficiaries to more advanced, evidence-based research that provides suitable solutions. It has been shown through previous research studies that there really is not much difference between learning in the classroom and learning online. However, the online learning situation can fit anyone’s busy schedule including late-at-night studying and this is most beneficial to medical personnel who have differing shifts, including overnight shifts (Bradley, 2011, 196). Ultimately, while the expenditure will be rather high, that initial loss can be returned back through subscriptions from outside medical personnel and organizations. Ultimately, the hospital benefits the most, not only in income from outside sources but also from better survey design that produces quality data, ready for manipulation in the SPSS program. Research can only get better with study of the processes and with experience gleaned from more research studies on many different variables. Appendix: Full Budget Table References Ahn, J. Watt, C., Man, L.X., Greeley, S.A. & Shea, J. (2007). “Educating Future Leaders of Medical Research: Analysis of Student Opinions and Goals from the MD-PhD SAGE (Student’s Attitudes, Goals, and Education) Survey,” Academic Medicine, 82,7, 633-645, Downloaded from http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Fulltext/2007/07000/Educational_Views_and_Attitudes,_and_Career_Goals.3.aspx Bradley, WE (2011) “A Conceptual Framework for the Design and Evaluation of Online Learning Modules in Professional Training and Academic Education in Business,” Proceedings of ASBBS,18,1, Downloaded from http://asbbs.org/files/2011/ASBBS2011v1/PDF/B/BradleyW.pdf Bridgewater State University (2008). “Proposal for Sustainable Online Courses and Programs at Bridgewater State College,” Bridgewater State University Online, Available at http://www.bridgew.edu/depts/acaffairs/Online%20Learning/Proposal%20for%20Sustainable%20Online%20Courses%20and%20Programs.pdf Domenic M.R.(n.d.). Research Proposal: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Online Learning as Opposed to Traditional Classroom Delivered Instruction,” Effectiveness of Online Learning, University of Arizona South, Downloaded from http://www.u.arizona.edu/~mdomenic/documents/ResrchPropLearning.pdf Field, A. (2009). Discovering Statistics Using SPSS (Introducing Statistical Method), 3rd ed., SAGE Publications, Ltd. HIPPA. (2003). HIPPA Privacy Rule, National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Available online at http://privacyruleandresearch.nih.gov/healthservicesprivacy.asp IBM Analytics Center. (2012). “Defining a blueprint for a smarter data center for flexibility and cost-effectiveness,” IBM Global Technology Services, Downloaded from http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/gtw03031usen/GTW03031USEN.PDF Survey Monkey. (2012). “How Do Educational Professionals Use Online Surveys?” Education, School, and Academic Surveys, Survey Monkey Online, Available at http://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/education-surveys/ Survey Monkey Web. (2012). Survey Monkey Online, Survey Design Services, Available at http://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/lp/design-services/ Young, A. (2010). “HPV Vaccine Acceptance among Women in the Asian Pacific: A Systematic Review of the Literature,” Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, vol. 11, pp.641-649. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21039030 Zikmund, W.G. (1999). Essentials of Market Research, Dryden Press, Philadelphia. Read More