Critical Thinking Part 3 - Assignment Example

The questionnaire used in the interview was developed specifically for the study. The authors developed the interview guide from key themes found in a review of the literature on second cancer risk. The authors presented evidence of the reliability of the instrument used: “A person-centered, open-ended interviewing approach helped elicit detailed responses and focused participants’ responses onto areas previously not anticipated” (489). The interviewers were trained since they are educated in the area and also studied related research before conducting their research.

The questions were appropriate for the research question. One sample question was: “compared with other people your age, how would you describe your risk of developing cancer this year?” (489). There is evidence of credibility and fittingness in the authors’ design. Great care and detail was put into the interview and analyzing of the data. An interpretative, qualitative design was used to collect the data and the constant comparative method was used to analyze the findings (483). Data coding was also used to compare emerging codes and cluster the data into new codes.

The statistical analysis fitted the research question. Two important themes emerged from the data: thinking about second risk and living with risk, a family affair. The findings were not statistically important since the data was qualitative. The authors used tables and figures effectively and in a way that was easy to interpret. One table showed a sample of the questionnaire used when interviewing the test subjects. It is possible there is researcher bias in the report of the findings since the ethnic sample was all one race.

Findings may have been specifically inherent in the ethnic sample interviewed, the researchers made generalizations about all cancer survivors when only one ethnicity was studied. The findings of the study will be relevant and will increase understanding of cancer survivors’ mindsets, but will