University of St.

La Salle

Bacolod City

College of Nursing

Nursing Research I

Endterm Exam

Submitted by:

Ellene Grace A. Dewara

BSN 3A

Submitted to:

Ms. Toni-An B. Lachica, RN, MAN

March 24, 2017

1. How essential is critical and creative thinking in nursing research? Cite a specific and

concrete example. Discuss comprehensively.

Critical thinking is defined as the mental process of actively and skillfully perception,

analysis, synthesis and evaluation of collected information through observation, experience and

communication that leads to a decision for action. While creative thinking is a way of looking at

problems or situations from a fresh perspective that suggests unorthodox solutions, which may

look unsettling at first. It can be stimulated both by an unstructured process such as

brainstorming, and by a structured process such as lateral thinking (Lau, 2013).

As we always say, Nursing is a science and an art altogether. And I firmly believe in that

in all aspects of the Nursing profession, even in Nursing Research. In my own opinion and

understanding, this is where critical and creative thinking also apply. Critical resembling the

science side and creative with the art factor of Nursing. Though the two are not interchangeable,

they are strongly linked, bringing complementary dimensions to thinking and learning in

research.

Critical and creative thinking are a must in our profession. They are both important in the

process since they are key components of Nursing research. With that said, the nurse researcher

must possess both of these skills in order to achieve the research output he or she wants. As

beginners, we the student researchers have to develop our capabilities in critical and creative

thinking as we learn to generate and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, seek

possibilities, consider alternatives and solve problems. Critical and creative thinking involves us

to think broadly and deeply using our skills, behaviors and dispositions such as reason, logic,

resourcefulness, imagination and innovation in all learning areas in the field of research and in

our lives beyond school and into the real world. The research method is a worded, rational and
systematic approach to problem solving thus, this is where our critical thinking comes in to

give solutions to the problems. To us health professionals working in uncontrolled situations, we

need to implement a modified approach of the scientific method of problem solving. With critical

thinking being important in all processes of problem solving, the nurse considers all possible

solutions, decides on the choice of the most appropriate solution and creatively come at an

agreement on herself and other members of the health care team on how to carry out that solution

for each and every case or study.

Critical thinking is at the core of most of our intellectual activity that involves learning to

recognize or develop an argument, use evidence in support of that argument, draw reasoned

conclusions, and use information to solve problems. Examples of critical thinking skills are

interpreting, analyzing, evaluating, explaining, sequencing, reasoning, comparing, questioning,

inferring, hypothesizing, appraising, testing and generalizing. Creative thinking involves learning

to generate and apply new ideas in specific contexts, seeing existing situations in a new way,

identifying alternative explanations, and seeing or making new links that generate a positive

outcome. This includes combining parts to form something original, sifting and refining ideas to

discover possibilities, constructing theories and objects, and acting on intuition. The products of

creative endeavor can involve complex representations and images, investigations and

performances, digital and computer-generated output, or occur as virtual reality. With all these

skills, important to the success of our paper.

Critical thinking is applied by nurses in the process of solving problems of patients and

decision-making process with creativity to enhance the effect. It is an essential process for a safe,

efficient and skillful nursing intervention. When you compare this description on how critical
and creative thinking is to Nursing Research, you also need critical thinking to decide what topic

you want to study on and how you will go about it. Like what research design, data gathering

procedure and research instrument you are going to use. Deciding who the respondents of your

study and how many they are going to be also require your critical thinking skills. Because

without it, your research paper will have no substance and will have no use and significance to

the future researchers and others as well. Your research study must be well thought of but must

also be feasible, for the reason that we are just beginners in the field of research, and that we still

have a lot of things to learn. It is important that you carefully choose your topic, so that you may

have an impact to the Nursing spectra and the society. And by doing so, you need to have both

critical and creative thinking. With regards to creative thinking, this will manifest in how you

state the title of the study, how you write your introduction, how you draw your conceptual

framework and the like. With regards to this statement, critical thinking, combined with

creativity, refine the result as nurse researchers can find specific solutions to specific problems

with creativity taking place. Even with creativity, nurse researchers generate new ideas quickly,

get flexible and natural, create original solutions to problems, act independently and with

confidence, even under pressure, and demonstrate originality. To us student nurse researchers,

given that we only have limited time to do our research, we must enhance and use both of these

skills to their highest potential in order for us to have good outputs.

In conclusion, we should be especially aware of the climate of thought that is

implemented and we should actively create an environment that stimulates and encourages

diversity of opinion and research ideas. The nurse researchers will also have a systematic way to

be applied to investigate the views of people from different cultures, religions, social and

economic levels, family structures and different ages especially in doing research in the
workplace already and outside of school. Nurse researchers should encourage each other to

scrutinize the data prior to drawing in conclusions. Critical and creative thinking is an essential

process for the safe, efficient and skillful nursing practice, especially in the field of nursing

research. The nursing education programs should adopt skills and attitudes that promote critical

and creative thinking and mobilize the skills of critical reasoning.

2. Discuss the interrelatedness and interconnectedness of nursing theory and nursing

research.

Research is the process of inquiry while theory is the product of knowledge, and science

is the result of the relationship between research and theory. The relationship between theory and

research in nursing is not well understood by many. To effectively build knowledge to research

process, it should be developed within some theoretical structure that facilitates an analysis and

interpretation of findings. Research without theory results in discreet information or data which

does not add to the accumulated knowledge of the discipline. A theory guides the research

process, forms the research questions, aids in design, analysis and interpretation. It enables the

scientist to weave the facts together. The relationship between the two is direct and positive. The

choice of a research design depends on the question asked and the current state of theory

development (Kaiser Permanente, 2009). A theory and its associated research design may be

descriptive, correlational, or experimental. The Nursing science is blend of knowledge that is

unique to nursing and knowledge that is borrowed from other disciplines. So, there is a debate if

whether the use of borrowed theory from other disciplines has hindered the development of the

discipline or not. Some say that it has contributed to problems connecting research and theory in

nursing. The purposes of a theory in research are to identify meaningful and relevant areas for
study, to propose plausible approaches to health problems, to develop or refine theories, to define

the concepts and proposed relationships between concepts, to interpret research findings, to

develop clinical practice protocols, and lastly, to generate nursing diagnosis to have a solution to

the problem. Bordage (2009) explains the use of conceptual frameworks in research. First is to

allow researchers to build upon one anothers work; thereby building a body of knowledge and

next is that the programmatic, conceptually based research helps accumulate deeper

understanding over time and this moves a discipline (such as nursing) forward. The theory is also

designed to develop and describe relationships between and among phenomena without

imposing preconceived notations from its readers. It is inductive and includes field observations

and phenomenology. During the theory generating process, the researcher moves by logical

thought from fact to theory by means of a proposition stated as an empirical generalization. With

regards to the theory relating to the conceptual framework, the problem being investigated is fit

into an existing theoretical framework, which guides the study and enriches the value of its

findings. The conceptual definitions are drawn from the framework and the data collection

instrument is congruent with the framework. Findings are then interpreted in light of

explanations provided by the framework. Implications are based on the explanatory power of a

framework. It also explains why it is a good fit for the research problem area and it thoroughly

describes the framework and explains its application to the present study. In conclusion, the

relationship between research and theory is undeniable, and it is important to recognize the

impact of these relationships on the development of nursing knowledge.

3. What do you think are the usual or common challenges that a researcher encounters in

the making of a research study? Why? Explain comprehensively.

 A thesis is the back bone for a researcher's writing project. It is an idea in the brain which

uses the nerve paths to reach the vertebrae and other muscular and skeletal systems of the body

of the thesis. Every researcher wants to write a thesis in the best possible way as it is the most

important research document in a researcher's life. It is a variety of problems which researchers

face while setting out to write a thesis. I for one initially thought that making a research paper is

not overwhelming, but I guess I was wrong. It is overwhelming in so many ways both

positively and negatively.

To begin with, many researchers encounter problems with the research paper because

they do not fully review all of the information available. As a result, the researcher may choose a

topic that is too general or too specific. After researching and narrowing down the topic,

choosing an appropriate thesis statement is another problem. A well-written thesis has a good

thesis statement by which main ideas are related. The thesis statement is a researcher's guide

which takes him along the right path and avoids getting lost or losing the track of relevant

thoughts. Another problem I believe is incorrectly citing sources within texts. When the

researcher paper is incorrectly cited or fails to give credit altogether to the person whose ideas

we borrowed, the researcher has committed plagiarism. Plagiarism can involve blatantly copying

ideas and passing them off as your own, or can be committed unintentionally by not providing

parenthetical citations at the end of each statement that covers the material that we borrowed.

Whether we summarize, paraphrase or directly quote a source, failing to provide adequate source

citation is still plagiarism.

Other problems not concerning the paper itself would be the lack of resources, conflicts

with your groupmates, and most importantly, the lack of time to do the paper. With regards to the

lack of resources, we need to consider that we are still students and also have a lot of things to
think about. We need to invest time, effort, and finances into this paper in order for it to be

acceptable. We also need to be realistic and admit the fact that sometimes, our finances are not

enough. That is why we need to think of a research topic that is feasible, considering we are

students and we are just beginners in the research field. Conflicts with groupmates are inevitable

and unavoidable. But, always resolvable. If the group is willing to compromise, then there will

be no problem whatsoever. A good research paper output only takes group members who are

willing to sacrifice and work together for the benefit of everyone. With the issue of limited time,

researchers need to spend quality time on preparing the outline and content of the thesis paper.

Given only 2 semesters to do our work, on top of other requirements from different subjects, it

will be a taxing job for all of us to work with grace under pressure to finish our research paper.

Ultimately, completing a research paper takes time, effort, and proper planning. In order

to prevent major mistakes, the group must give themselves enough time to do research and write

the paper.