NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example
Research Article Critique Guidelines
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment completed as an APA Paper is for the student to learn to examine, analyze, critique, and summarize an original research article.
Course Outcomes
Through this assignment, the student will demonstrate the ability to meet the following course outcomes:
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CO1: Examine the sources of evidence that contribute to professional nursing practice. (PO7)
CO2: Apply research principles to the interpretation of the content of published research studies. (POs 4 and 8)
CO4: Evaluate published nursing research for credibility and lab significance related to evidence-based practice. (POs 4 and 8) NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example.
CO5: Recognize the role of research findings in evidence-based practice. (POs 7 and 8)
Points
The assignment is worth a total of 175 points.
Rubric
Click to view and download the NR439 Research Article Critique Paper Rubric (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..
Due Date
You are to submit your paper by Sunday 11:59 p.m. MT at the end of Week 6.
Requirements
Through this assignment, the student will:
Critique the required article found below and in your own words, describe the research question, sample, design of study, data collection method, findings, and limitations of each. (CO 1, CO2,)
Summarize the research article and evaluate the significance to nursing. Do not just quote the author’s words NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example. Paraphrase the information. (CO 4, CO5).
You are required to use the article below or you will earn a “0” for the assignment. In addition, assignments that do not follow the current guidelines and use the required article will be evaluated for evidence of an academic integrity violation.
After the due date, there will be no opportunity for revision or resubmission of assignments that have been uploaded to the submission area. It is your responsibility to submit the correct assignment to the correct submission area NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example.
Guidelines to Writing the Paper
This assignment is completed as an APA paper. APA resources can be found on the Course Resources Module.
Download the required article for analysis:
Lesiuk, T. (2015). The effect of mindfulness-based music therapy on attention and mood in women receiving adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer: A pilot study. Oncology Nursing Forum, 42(3), 276-282 NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example.
https://chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edswsc&AN=000354233000010&site=eds-live&scope=site (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Introduction (one paragraph): The introduction should be interesting and capture the reader’s attention.
Provide a brief description of the research article to be discussed.
Discuss the purpose of your paper. The purpose statement of the paper should relate to the research article reviewed and the implications that it has to evidence based nursing practice.
You will need to summarize and analyze the information from the article in your own words
Describe the research question for this study in a paragraph.
Describe the research in greater detail.
Include your observations about this question.
Discuss events or trends that could have affected this question.
You will need to summarize and analyze the information from the article in your own words
Describe the research design of this study, and in your own words discuss the design.
Discuss the research design of the study.
Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the type of design and hypothesize why the author utilized the design as opposed to others.
You will need to summarize the information from the article in your own words
Describe the sample NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example.
Briefly describe the sample size used for this study
Make a judgment as to whether the sample size was adequate and defend your answer.
Describe the number or participants and determine if the number of participants was adequate compared to the research question and the intent of the study.
Are these numbers adequate? Discuss gaps in that you identified.
You will need to summarize and analyze the information from the article in your own words
Describe the data collection method(s)’
Who collected the data?
What tools were used?
What were the ethical considerations addressed and discuss gaps you identified.
You will need to summarize and analyze the information from the article in your own words
Describe the limitations of the study.
Identify the limitations within the study
Describe how the limitations could be overcome in subsequent studies
Comment on why limitations are important to list and discuss within a study
You will need to summarize and analyze the information from the article in your own words
Describe the findings reported in the study.
Describe the findings reported in the study
Discuss whether the findings of the study answered the research question posed within the study
Discuss the credibility of the findings
If the findings do not support the research question posed within the study, what do you believe is the reason?
You will need to summarize and analyze the information from the article in your own words
Summary
Summarize important points from the body of your paper including the key components of the NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example.
Include a statement about the research question and the findings.
Discuss the probability of implementation into practice. Based on these findings, is the evidence that you found on your topic strong enough to suggest a change in practice, or an idea for practice?
End with a concluding statement.
Citations and References must be included to support the information within each topic area. Refer to the APA manual, Chapter 7, for examples of proper reference format. In-text citations are to be noted for all information contained in your paper that is not your original idea or thought. Ask yourself, “How do I know this?” and then cite the source.
Reference Page: The Reference Page should start on a new page (insert a page break). All references should be cited within the body of the paper as (Author, year) and the full reference should be included in APA format on the reference page. A url link alone is not an adequate reference. See the APA Guidelines in Course Resources for examples of properly formatted references.
Submit the completed paper by 11:59 p.m. MT on Sunday at the end of Week 6.
Research Article Critique
Introduction
Lesiuk (2015) is an eight-page article that presents the results of a study to evaluate the effect of mindfulness-based music therapy (MBMT) on Attention and Mood in Women Receiving Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer. As the title suggests, the study postulated that MBMT would be effective in improving mood and attention outcomes for breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy since mindfulness-based therapies had been determined to be effective in improving cognitive functioning. Of interest is that chemotherapy is acknowledged to be effective in treating breast cancer, yet it is accompanied by undesirable negative effects in the form of depressed attention and mood. Given that medical attention is intended to address a patient’s health needs without causing any undesirable harm, then it stands to reason that an ideal outcome would entail applying chemotherapy without experiencing depressed attention and mood. At its conclusion, the study intended to recommend the use of chemotherapy alongside MBMT to prevent the occurrence of depressed mood and attention as negative effects thereby ensuring better outcomes for breast cancer patients who seek chemotherapy treatment (Lesiuk, 2015) NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example.
Research Question
The article did not explicitly state the research question. Still the question can be inferred that: Can MBMT effectiveness improve the attention and mood of breast cancer patients using chemotherapy treatment? This would be an appropriate question since it identifies the population of interest, intervention under review, an appropriate comparison treatment, and desired outcome. The population of interest is breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy as a management strategy. The intervention under review is MBMT whose effectiveness and functioning is being evaluated. The MBMT measure is applied alongside chemotherapy. The appropriate comparison treatment is the use of chemotherapy alone. The desired outcome is to improve mood and attention of the patients undergoing treatment. Based on these elements the research question can be considered appropriate (Lesiuk, 2015).
Design of the Study
The design applied in the study to collect primary data has been identified as a quantitative, descriptive, longitudinal design. The quantitative aspect of the design refers to its reliance on empirical data collected from the treatment effects on a sample population. The descriptive aspect refers to how the collected data is manipulated to make inferences that answer the research question. The longitudinal aspect refers to the justification applied in selecting the sample participants from among the population of interest NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example. Overall, the research intended to review MBMT performance in terms of affecting attention and mood. To facilitate the evaluation exercise, Conners’ Continuous Performance Test II (CPT-II) version 5 and POMS-BF were applied as tools to measure attention and mood respectively. The two tools are appropriate since they are recognized for presenting true measures of the two variables. The research proceeded by first seeking institutional ethics approval for the study to proceed. This was followed by recruiting 15 breast cancer patients as participants who were subjected to the MBMT program in once-weekly sessions over four weeks. Data was then collected using the two tools before carrying out statistical analysis that determined the correlation between the use of MBMT and the variables of interest (Lesiuk, 2015). The research design applied in the study is appropriate. That is because it recruited participants from among the population of interest and used verified tools to collect a true measure of attention and mood as the variables of interest. Additionally, the collected data was subjected to statistical analysis carried out be software (Privitera, 2014) NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example.
Sample/Population of the Study
The study recruited a sample of 15 participants who were all breast cancer patients who were undergoing chemotherapy as part of their treatment. These participants were recruited from Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center where they were undergoing treatment using chemotherapy. The recruited participants were a suitable source of primary data for the study since they are the population of interest (breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy as treatment). Besides that, the sample was recruited in a cancer treatment facility where data can easily be collected to advance the research goals (Lesiuk, 2015) NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example. Although the sample can be considered appropriate since it was selected from the population of interest, the number of participants who were recruited is worrying. That is because 15 is a small number when evaluated against the total number of breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Although this was a number recruited through convenience by accepting the patients who qualified to participate in the study and expressed a willingness to be recruited, more effort should have been expended to recruit a larger number of participants to ensure that the results presented an average of the population. That is to say that the results generalizability can only be guaranteed by recruiting a larger number of participants (Bryman, 2016) NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example.
Data Collection Methods
Data collection relied on two tools. The first tool is Conners’ Continuous Performance Test II (CPT-II) version 5 that measured the participants’ attention scores. The second tool is POMS-BF that measured the participants’ mood score. These two tools are considered appropriate since they presented a true measure of attention and mood as the variables under review as evidenced by the fact that they have been used in other studies for the same purpose (Lesiuk, 2015). While the data collection methods may have presented a true measure of the variables under review, the accuracy of the collected data cannot be guaranteed since there is a possibility of researcher bias. The study was conducted by a single individual who was responsible for all aspects of data collection. This implies that the research could have easily manipulated the data to conform to some preconceived notion of what the results should reflect NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example. To counter this bias, the researcher should have recruited more people to verify that the data collection was conducted honestly with no bias (Bryman, 2016).
Limitations
The article does not mention any limitations that the researcher faced during the course of the study. Still, there are some limitations that can be inferred from the article. The first limitation is that the research only recruited 15 participants thereby reducing the results generalizability. A larger number of participants should have been recruited from different facilities to improve generalizability. The second limitation is that the study was conducted over a very short period of time. Four sessions spread over four weeks is not enough time to gain a true understanding of the effects of MBMT. The study should be conducted over a longer period of time to counter this limitation (Manfra & Bolick, 2017).
Findings
The mean age of the participants is 52.6 with the oldest participant being 70 years while the youngest participant was 27 years. The MBMT program improved both attention (F[1,14] = 6.69, p=0.022) and mood (F[5,65] = 20.83, p<0.001) with the results being statistically significant. Based on this results, it can be accepted that MBMT is effective in improving both attention and mood for breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. These results are credible since the procedure for arriving at them was well presented to facilitate replication (Lesiuk, 2015). NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example.
Summary of the Article
The article explores the position that MBMT can play in improving both attention and mood for breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. To achieve this aim, the study applied a quantitative, descriptive, longitudinal design to collect primary data. In fact, it recruited 15 breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy for treatment then subjected them to Conners’ Continuous Performance Test II (CPT-II) version 5 and POMS-BF to collect their attention and mood scores respectively. The collected data was then subjected to statistical analysis, which determined that MBMT is effective in improving both attention and mood for breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example. Still, the value of the results is reduced by the small number of participants and the study being conducted over a short period of time as limitations.
References
Bryman, A. (2016). Social Research Methods (5th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lesiuk, T. (2015). The effect of mindfulness-based music therapy on attention and mood in women receiving adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer: A pilot study. Oncology Nursing Forum, 42(3), 276-282.
Manfra, M. & Bolick, C. (2017). The Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.
Privitera, G. (2014). Research Methods for the Behavioral Sciences. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE NR439 Week 6: Research Article Critique Paper Example.