Discussion topic - Assignment Example

Discussion topic affiliation Both qualitative research and quantitative research has a vital role to play in nursing sciences and are significantly becoming recognised. The qualitative research in nursing mostly encompasses the lived experiences of both patients and nurses. It has been observed that the qualitative research has brought a lot of understanding in chronic illnesses, whereby nurses understand more about how the patients live and cope with the chronic illness. Moreover, the research enhances an insight and nurses develop new as well as creative ways of providing quality care to chronically ill patients.

On the other hand, quantitative research method has a major merit in that it can be administered and evaluated very quickly and the responses tabulated very quickly. In addition, the numerical data obtained in this method facilitates quick comparisons between groups as well as the extent of congruence between respondents. This advantage is majorly used in nursing research when a comparison is needed after a new nursing intervention is initiated for example nursing rounding (Carr, 2014). Quantitative and qualitative research study methods have some of their limitation in nursing research.

A study done by Carson (2011) on the strengths and weakness of research designs involving quantitative measures, found out that experimental research has several methodological limitations. These limitations were seen to jeopardize the internal and external validity of the research results thus limiting their applicability for practice. Some of the threats noted were sampling and recruitment. Sampling technique may have a problem in randomised control trials when the potential participants are not prepared to opt for treatment in randomised basis.

Similarly, recruiting subjects to participate in clinical trials may be difficult. On the other hand, qualitative research has been noted to be time consuming and important issues may be overlooked during the study. in essence both methods are appropriate to conduct a research, and can contribute greatly to the scientific body of knowledge (Carr, 2014). Reference Carr, L. T. (2014). The strengths and weaknesses of quantitative and qualitative research: what method for nursing? Journal of Advanced Nursing, 20(4), 716–721.

Carson, J. (2011). The strengths and weaknesses of research designs involving quantitative measures. Journal of Research in Nursing.