This document provides an introduction to nursing research. It defines nursing research as a systematic, objective process that studies topics important to nursing practice, education, administration, and nurses. The document outlines the importance of nursing research in building the nursing knowledge base, improving patient care, and establishing nursing as a credible profession. It also discusses the relationships between nursing research, theory, and practice, with research, theory, and practice informing each other in a reciprocal cycle. Finally, it provides definitions of key research terms and outlines common methodologies used in developing nursing research.

1. INTRODUCTION
TO
NURSING RESEARCH
Prof.Dr.Chinna Chadayan.N
RN.RM., B.Sc (N)., M.Sc (N)., Ph.D (N).,
Professor,
Adult and Elderly Health Nursing Department,
Enam Nursing College – Savar,
Bangladesh.

2. WHAT IS RESEARCH
 The word ‘research’ means Re-search i.e.
‘to search again’ and ‘to examine carefully’.
 Research is the creation of new knowledge and/or
the use of existing knowledge in a new and creative
way .
 Research is a process of systematic collection,
analysis and interpretation of data and to find out
the solution for the question.

3. WHAT IS NURSING RESEARCH
 Nursing research is systematic, objective process
of analyzing phenomena of importance to nursing it
includes studies concerning Nursing Practice,
Nursing Education, Nursing Administration &
Nurses Themselves

4.  N - Nurturing clients
 U - Understanding clients with empathy
 R - Reviewing clients' problems to select priority
 S - Systematically planned nursing protocol
 I - Interventions are based on rationale
 N - Need for more nursing theories
 G - Generalized research findings are applied
 R - Rational way of thinking
 E - Exploratory, evaluative and experimental
 S - Survey is to search for facts
 E - Empirical
 A -Analysis of data
 R - Review of literature is essential
 C - Confirmed facts are communicated
 H - High standard of nursing is assured

5. DEFINITION
 “Nursing research is systematic inquiry designed to develop
knowledge about issues of importance to the nursing profession,
including nursing practice, education, administration and
informatics.”
 —Polit and Beck
 “Nursing research is a scientific process that validates and
refines existing knowledge and generates new knowledge that
directly and indirectly influences clinical nursing practice.”
 —Burns and Grove
 “Nursing research is a scientific, systematic and orderly process
to find out solutions for problems concerning to nursing or
generating and refining the nursing knowledge to improve quality
of nursing care, nursing education and nursing administration.”
 —SK Sharma

6. IMPORTANCE OF NURSING RESEARCH
 Nursing research is an important ingredient to
improve nursing practice. A profession can enhance
its progress through continual development of a
scientific body of knowledge through scientific
research. The emergence of such a body of
scientific knowledge can be instrumental in
fastening a commitment and accountability to the
profession's clientele.

7. The several reasons-for conducting research include
to: .
 build body of knowledge unique to nursing
 improve the quality of nursing care services
 establish social relevance of nursing
 validate nursing as a profession.
 Research Promotes evidenced based nursing care
 Provide accountability of nursing practice
 Develop model and framework for nursing practice
 Ensure credibility of nursing profession
 Improve cost effectiveness in nursing practice

8. IMPORTANCE OF RESEARCH IN NURSING
 Professionalism - nurses recognize a need to extend the base
of nursing knowledge as part of professional responsibility The
research in practice help nursing practitioners, educator,
administrators make their decisions, improve quality of the
decision by pointing out effectiveness and non-effectiveness
 Accountability- scientific accountability helps to improve
quality of nursing care, solve problems, it includes reading the
scientific literature for new knowledge and application of it.
 Research in nursing practice, It is the key to improve nursing
practice, improve quality of care, understand and explain the
functions and forms of nursing care in meeting the needs of
society and in helping individuals maintain health.

9.  Research in nursing administration- Findings helps
the nurse administrator in
*solving problems in organization, delivery and
evaluation of client or patient care.
*Organization nursing personnel in the most
efficient manner.
* Planning budgets.
*Maintain the satisfying elements & eliminate
the more dissatisfying and dysfunctional aspects of
the work environment
 Research in nursing education;
Nurse educators utilize the finding from research in
structuring programs of study, developing course
content, designing new methods of teaching.

10. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEORY ,
RESEARCH AND NURSING PRACTICE
 Practice research, and theory are the cornerstones (quality that depends
on both) of the nursing profession.
 The relationship of these three cornerstones are reciprocal (equal) and
cyclical.
 Clinical practice generates research questions and knowledge for theory.
 Research guides our practice and builds knowledge through theory
development.
 Theory guides research and improve practice.
 The development of Nursing theory and Nursing research are part of the
movement towards professional practice.
 Nursing Theory and Research have the goal to improve the quality of
Nursing care to the client .
 Nursing Theory provides a systematic approach to practice Nursing as it
describes the relationship between the Nurse –Client.
 Alejandro believes that in today’s healthcare landscape, a demand for
excellence influences recognized hospitals to use Nursing theories to
daily practice, to achieve positive outcomes.

12. RESEARCH TERMS
 RESEARCH • Research is defined as a systematic and scientific
process to answer questions about facts and relationship between facts.
It is an activity involved in seeking answer to unanswered questions.
 3. RESEARCH • Research seeks to generate an answer to the problems
as well as suggesting additional questions in need of further inquiry.
 4. RESEARCH • Research is a scientific, systematic, controlled, orderly
and objective investigation to develop, refine and expand body of
knowledge.
 5. ABSTRACT A clear, concise summary that communicates the
essential information about the study. In research journals, it is usually
located at the beginning of an article
 6. DATA Units of information or any statistics, facts, figures, general
material, evidence, or knowledge collected during the course of the
study.
 7. VARIABLES Attributes or characteristics that can have more than one
value, such as height or weight. Variables are qualities or quantities,
properties or characteristics of people, things, or situations that change
or vary.

13.  8. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE Variables that are purposely manipulated
or changed by the researcher. It is also called as “ MANIPULATED
VARIBLE”.
 9. RESEARCH VARIABLE Refers to Qualities, Properties or
Characteristics which are observed or measured in a natural setting
without manipulating & establishing cause & effect relationship
 10. DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES The characteristics & attributes of
study subjects such as age, gender, place of living, educational status,
religion, social class, marital status, occupation, income are considered
as demographic variables.
 11. EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES Are factors that are not the part of the
study but may affect the measurements of the study variable.
 12. OPERATIONAL DEFINITION Refers to the way in which the
researcher defines the variables under investigation. Operational
definition are stated in such way by the investigator specifying how the
study variables will be measured in the actual research situation.
 13. CONCEPT Refers to a mental idea of a phenomenon. Concepts are
words or terms that symbolize some aspects of reality. E.g.. Love, pain.
 14. CONSTRUCT Is a highly abstract & complex phenomenon ( concept)
which is denoted by a made up or constructed term.
 15. A construct term is used to indicate a phenomenon that cannot be
directly observed but must be inferred by certain concrete or less
abstract indicators of the phenomenon. E.g. self esteem.

14.  16. PROPOSITION • A Proposition is a statement or assertion of the
relationship between concepts. E.g., relationship between anxiety
and performance.
 17. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK • Interrelated concepts or
abstractions that are assembled together in some rational scheme by
virtue of their relevance to a common theme. It is also referred to as
theoretical framework.
 18. ASSUMPTION • Basic principle that is being true on the basis of
logic or reason, without proof or verification.
 19. HYPOTHESIS • A statement of the predicted relationship
between two or more variables in a research study; an educated or
calculated guess by the researcher.
 20. LITERATURE REVIEW • A critical summary or research on a
topic of interest, generally prepared to put a research problem in
context or to identify gaps and weaknesses in prior studies so as to
justify a new investigation.
 21. LIMITATIONS • Restrictions in a study that may decrease the
credibility and generalizability of the research findings.
 22. MANIPULATION • An intervention or treatment introduced by the
researcher in an experimental or quasi experimental study; the
researcher manipulates the independent variable to assess its
impact on the dependent variable.

15.  23. POPULATION • The entire set of individuals or objects
having some common characteristic(s) selected for a research
study is referred to as population.
 24. TARGET POPULATION • The entire population in which the
researchers are interested and to which they would like to
generalize the research findings.
 25. ACCESSIBLE POPULATION • The aggregate of cases that
conform to designated inclusion or exclusion criteria and that are
accessible as subjects of the study.
 26. RESEARCH SETTING • The study setting is the location in
which the research is conducted. It could be natural, partially
controlled environment or laboratories.
 27. SAMPLE • A part or subset of population selected to
participate in the research study.
 28. REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE • A sample whose
characteristics are highly similar to that of the population from
which it is drawn.
 29. SAMPLING • The process of selecting sample from the target
population to represent the entire population.
 30. PROBABILITY SAMPLING • The selection of subjects or
sampling units from a population using random procedure; E.g.,
Simple random Sampling, Stratified random Sampling.

16.  31. NON PROBABILITY SAMPLING • The selection of
subjects or sampling units from a population using non
random procedure. E.g., Convenient Sampling,
Purposive Sampling.
 32. RELIABILITY • The degree of consistency or
accuracy with which an instrument measures the
attributes it is designed to measure.
 33. VALIDITY • The degree to which an instrument what
it is intended to measure.
 34. PILOT STUDY • Study carried out at the end of the
planning phase of research in order to explore and test
the research elements to make relevant modifications in
research tools and methodology.
 35. ANALYSIS • Method of organizing , sorting, and
scrutinizing data in such a way that research question
can be answered or meaningful inferences can be
drawn.
 36.PILOT STUDY: "Asmall scale trial done in
preparation of a major research"

17.  A RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS (or scientific
hypothesis) is a statement about an expected
relationship between variables, that is clear,
specific.
Example :If I brush my teeth every day, then I will
not develop cavities.

18. METHODOLOGIES FOR DEVELOPING
RESEARCH
 METHODOLOGY
Research methodology is the systematic way
of solving a research question. It is the science that
involves various steps which are generally adopted
by a researcher in studying his or her research
problem along with the logic behind it (Burns &
Grove, 2003).

19. STEPS IN RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
 RESEARCH APPROACH
 RESEARCH DESIGN
 VARIABLES
 POPULATION
 SAMPLE AND SAMPLE SIZE
 CRITERIA FOR SAMPLE SELECTION
 SAMPLING TECHNIQUE
 DEVELOPMENT AND DESCRIPTION OF THE TOOL
 VALIDITY OF THE TOOL
 RELIABILITY
 PILOT STUDY
 DETAILS OF THE INTERVENTION
 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE
 PLAN FOR DATA ANALYSIS

68. RESEARCH APPROACH
Qualitative Quantitative
Keywords
Complexity, contextual, inductive logic, discovery,
exploration
Experiment, random assignment,
independent/dependent variable,
causal/correlational, validity, deductive logic
Purpose Understand a phenomenon
Discover causal relationships or describe a
phenomenon
Sample Purposive sample, small Random sample, large
Data Focus groups, interviews, field observation Tests, surveys, questionnaires
Methods/Design
Phenomenological, grounded theory, ethnographic,
case study, historical/narrative research, participatory
research, clinical research
Experimental, quasi-experimental, descriptive,
methodological, exploratory, comparative,
correlational, developmental (cross-sectional,
longitudinal/prospective/cohort, retrospective/ex post
facto/case control)

70. RESEARCH DESIGN

71. VARIABLES

72. POPULATION

73. SAMPLE AND SAMPLE SIZE

74. CRITERIA FOR SAMPLE SELECTION

75. SAMPLING TECHNIQUE

76. DEVELOPMENT AND DESCRIPTION OF
THE TOOL

77. VALIDITY OF THE TOOL

78. RELIABILITY

79. PILOT STUDY

80. DETAILS OF THE INTERVENTION

81. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE

82. PLAN FOR DATA ANALYSIS