This version of the course guide is provisional until the period for editing the new course guides ends.

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Health and Qualitative Research Methods

Code: 106140 ECTS Credits: 3
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
2500891 Nursing OT 4

Contact

Name:
Maria Feijoo Cid
Email:
maria.feijoo@uab.cat

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

None


Objectives and Contextualisation

The purpose of the subject is to provide adequate knowledge and skills to evaluate critically the scientific literature of nursing care, from a constructivist and/or an interpretative point of view. Furthermore, gender-sensitive approach to research should be incorporated


Competences

  • Act with ethical responsibility and respect for fundamental rights and duties, diversity and democratic values.
  • Base nursing interventions on scientific evidence and the available media.
  • Make changes to methods and processes in the area of knowledge in order to provide innovative responses to society's needs and demands.
  • Offer technical and professional health care and that this adequate for the health needs of the person being attended, in accordance with the current state of scientific knowledge at any time and levels of quality and safety established under the applicable legal and deontological rules.
  • Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
  • Take sex- or gender-based inequalities into consideration when operating within one's own area of knowledge.
  • Use scientific methodology in interventions.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Acquire and use the necessary instruments for developing a critical and reflective attitude.
  2. Argue for the applicability of qualitative research in health care for promoting person-centred care.
  3. Describe the ethical principles involved in nursing research.
  4. Describe the evidence provided by qualitative research to improve person-centred care.
  5. Give arguments for the role of gender inequality in science: both in scientific production and in the professional-academic aspect.
  6. Identify the different research methods in the health sciences.
  7. Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.

Content

Paradigms of research: positivist vs. phenomenological-interpretative. Gender perspective in health using qualitative methods.

Introduction to interpretative methodologies: ethnography, phenomenology. Introduction to critical methodologies: investigation-action-participation. Sampling techniques and information saturation. Qualitative techniques of data collection applied to the health-illness-care process. Analysis and coding qualitative data. Criteria of rigor for qualitative research. Critical reading of scientific literature with qualitative methodology.


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
LABORATORY PRACTICES 2 0.08 6, 7
SEMINARS 11 0.44 1, 5, 2, 4, 3, 6, 7
THEORY 12 0.48 1, 5, 2, 4, 3, 6, 7
Type: Autonomous      
SELF-STUDY 40.55 1.62 1, 5, 7

The different learning methodologies make up both of the theoretical content and of the skills related to critical thinking in the decision-making nursing process in health-illness-attention process.

Theory will provide all the necessary basic contents in order to be successful in the rest of the teaching methodologies.

The seminars will include the critical analysis of original articles using qualitative methods. These original articles will be mostly in English. We will work in groups. To carry out this critical reading, a template will be provided to be used as a checklist to detect and justify the rigorous methodology of the article. We will also provide an additional checklist to identify and justify whether the gender perspective has been taken into account in the research.

In the lab practices, the students will plan a scientific database search based on a qualitative research question.

Students, if they wish and are committed, may substitute the critical reading of original articles for Service Learning (SL) projects. These projects of social commitment allow the student to be trained through participation in a project aimed at solving a real need in a community and thus improve the living conditions of people or the quality of the environment (for more information  http://pagines.uab.cat/aps).

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Objective tests: multiple-choice test 40% 3.45 0.14 1, 2, 4, 3, 6, 7
Objective tests: multiple-choice test 20% 3 0.12 2, 4, 3, 6
Work submission 40% 3 0.12 1, 5, 2, 4, 3, 6, 7

ONGOING EVALUATION

The evaluation tests are:

1) Two objective tests:

(a) a multiple-choice exam where theory will be evaluated, with a weight of 40%.

b) a multiple-choice exam with questions about an original article previously uploaded to Moodle and which must be carried printed on the day of the exam. This exam is weighted at 20%.

2) Delivery of work: each seminar group will submit a work at the end of the seminars (40%). This work consists of a written critical reading of an original article answering the checklist that has been worked on during the seminars.

The final Score

  1. The final score of the subject is the weighted average of each of the evaluative activities.
  2. The final score of the subject is the weighted average of the evaluation activities, as long as the score of each of these is equal to or higher than 4.
  3. In the cases in which any of the evaluation activities is lower than 4, the resulting score will be the weighted average according to the previous criteria whenever it is lower than 5, or it will be fixed at 4.3 whenever the weighted average is higher than 5.

Evaluation criteria:

  1. The final scoreof the subject is the weighted average of each one of the evaluative activities.
  2. All evaluation activities are compulsory, in case of non-presentation, they will be classified as non-evaluable (NE) and quantified as zero (0).
    1. Definition of NOT EVALUABLE: it will be understood by Non-Evaluable (NE) that situation in which the student is NOT Present 50% or more of the evaluation activities.
  3. The final score of the subject is the weighted average of the assessment activities, provided when,the mark of each of them is equal to or greater than 4. In the cases that any of the activities of evaluation is less than 4, the resultant numerical mark will be the weighted average accordingto the previous criteria provided it is less than 5, or will be set to 4.3 provided that the weighted average is greater than 5.

Retake:

  • Students who have not passed the subject by means of the continuous evaluation may submit to one retake exam as much as the student has been assessed for two thirds of the total grade of the subject. 
  • The retake exam will include all the subject syllabus and the learning of the seminars and laboratory practices.
  • In the retake the student will have to take a multiple-choice exam where he/she recovers the whole subject. In this retake exam there will be theory questions and questions about another original article that students must carry printed on the day of the exam.
  • The retake score will be the final score of the subject, it will not be averaged in any case with the approved evaluative activities.
  • It is necessary to obtain a minimum of 5.0 in the retake exam to pass the subject.

Review of tests: all students have the right to review the evaluation tests with a previous appointment with the teacher. The review will consist of an individual tutoring where the student will be given the feedback in relation to his assessment.

The eventual treatment of particular cases: It will be carried out from a teaching committee (formed by the coordinator of the subject, and 2 departmental professors who are experts in the subject). This committee will evaluate the situation particular of the student and the most appropriate decisions will be taken.

This subject does not provide thesingle assessment system


Bibliography

Selected References
 
  1. Susan K. Grove., Jennifer R. Gray, Nancy Burns. Investigación en enfermería. Desarrollo de la práctica enfermera basada en la evidencia. Madrid. Elsevier. 6a ed. 2021
  2. McCance, Tanya, Jan Dewing, and Brendan McCormack. Person-Centred Nursing Research : Methodology, Methods and Outcomes. Springer Nature Switzerland, 2021. Print.
  3. Ana Berenguera, Maria J. Fernández de Sanmamed, Mariona Pons, Enriqueta Pujol, Dolors Rodríguez, Silvia Saura. Escuchar, observar y comprender. Recuperando la narrativa en las Ciencias de la Salud. Aportaciones de la investigacióncualitativa. Barcelona: Institut Universitari d’Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol (IDIAP J. Gol), 2014
  4. David Silverman. Interpreting qualitative data : methods for analysing talk, text and interaction. London. Sage, 2014.
  5. John W. Creswell. Research design : qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. California. Sage Publications; 3rd ed; 2009. Disponible en http://fe.unj.ac.id/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Research-Design_Qualitative-Quantitative-and-Mixed-Methods-Approaches.pdf
  6. Maria L. Vázquez Navarrete; M. Rejane Ferreira da Silva; Amparo Mogollon Pérez; Maria J. Fernández de Sanmamed Santos ;M. Eugenia Delgado Gallego; Ingrid Vargas Lorenzo. Introducción a las técnicas cualitativas de investigación aplicadas en salud. Cursos GRAAL 5. Materials 168. 2006.
  7. Amanda Coffey; Paul Atkinson. Encontrar el sentido a los datos cualitativos: estrategias complementarias de investigación. Universidad de Alicante. 2005
 
Referral References:
  1. Kara, Helen, and Su-ming Khoo. Qualitative and Digital Research in Times of Crisis : Methods, Reflexivity and Ethics / Edited by Helen Kara and Su-Ming Khoo. Ed. Helen Kara and Su-ming Khoo. 1st ed. Bristol: Policy Press, 2022. Print.
  2. Lincoln, Timothy. Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Atla Open Press, 2021. Web.
  3. Neale, Bren, and Graham Crow. What Is Qualitative Longitudinal Research? London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2018. Web.
  4. Sonyel Oflazoglu. Qualitative Versus Quantitative Research. Rijeka, Croatia: IntechOpen, 2017. Web.
  5. Oriol Romaní (ed.). Etnografía, técnicas cualitativas e investigación en salud: un debate abierto. Publicacions URV, Tarragona. 2013. Disponible en https://www.academia.edu/7065196/Etnograf%C3%ADa_metodolog%C3%ADas_cualitativas_e_investigaci%C3%B3n_en_salud_un_debate_abierto

Internet Sources
 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
http://www.scopus.com/
http://www.doaj.org/
http://www.easp.es/exploraevidencia/

Software

No software is used.


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(PAUL) Classroom practices 301 Catalan first semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 301 Catalan first semester morning-mixed