Preparation of Nurses Who Precept Baccalaureate Nursing Students - Essay Example

"Preparation of Nurses Who Precept Baccalaureate Nursing Students" is a great example of a paper on care. The design type for this research is a descriptive study that relied on the use of surveys to gather information from nurses who had precepted BSN nurses in the last 12 to 18 months (Rogan, 2009). A descriptive study looks to gather information from what is already there, as opposed to experimental or semi-experimental studies which try to change a variable (Watson, McKenna, Cowman & Keady, 2008).

In this case, the study aimed at finding out which elements of nursing training were considered to be ‘essential’, ‘useful’ or ‘not needed’ as a way of assessing the utility of perception as a way of preparing student nurses for their future career. The study design was also quantitative, which means that it relies on fixed data streams which can then be used to assess opinions from the survey, rather than allowing open-ended qualitative responses (Rogan, 2009).

Additionally, the survey had to be approved by the hospitals involved in the study and it is also noted that the survey has been edited to change the focus of the study slightly. In doing this, it is more likely that the study authors will be examining the thoughts and feelings on preception and how it impacts nursing studentsThere are many reasons that a research team will choose a certain research design in order to answer the questions that they have about a certain topic. This research is particularly interesting as the researchers did not want to try and implement a new way of educating nurses, but rather evaluate the use of preception and how prepared that the preceptors themselves are for their role in guiding student nurses in their new roles and future careers.

In this sense, it is important to use a descriptive study because it allows responses to reflect what currently occurs within the workplace rather than relying on changes that may have been put in by the researchers themselves. Using a study that is anonymous, as in this study, is also a good idea to get truthful responses as many people feel threatened about telling the truth when their name is linked to survey responses (Watson et al, 2008). It is also interesting that the researchers chose a quantitative research design because many studies of a similar format do allow open-ended questions that yield qualitative results.

In this case, it seems appropriate to use the quantitative design because it allows for more statistical analysis of the results and also means that the real information is not lost in meaningless sentences and words (Watson et al, 2008). It also helps prevent the research from going off track (Watson et al, 2008).It is also interesting that the research design chose to focus on a few key issues in preception for student nurses which had not been covered in detail before. This is important in all types of research, as it allows new information to be added to the field (Watson et al, 2008).

In this case, preceptors felt that one of the most important aspects of their role was to help student nurses understand how to manage their workload. Ensuring that the survey covers this type of question is important in gaining information that is relevant to the research. In this way, it is useful that the study identified that the survey needed some amendments before sending out to preceptors to ensure that the right type of information was gathered. An important part of the research design is ensuring that the research measures what is required by the hypothesis and research aims.