Question
| Assignment: Critiquing Quantitative, Qualitative, or Mixed Methods Studies Critiquing the validity and robustness of research featured in journal articles provides a critical foundation for engaging in evidence-based practice. In Weeks 5 and 6, you explored quantitative research designs. In Week 7, you will examine qualitative and mixed methods research designs. For this Assignment, which is due by Day 7 of Week 7, you critique a quantitative and either a qualitative or a mixed methods research study and compare the types of information obtained in each. To prepare: •Select a health topic of interest to you that is relevant to your current area of practice. The topic may be your Course Portfolio Project or a different topic of your choice. •Using the Walden Library, locate two articles in scholarly journals that deal with your portfolio topic: 1) Select one article that utilizes a quantitative research design and 2) select a second article that utilizes either a qualitative OR a mixed methods design. These need to be single studies not systematic or integrative reviews (including meta-analysis and metasynthesis). You may use research articles from your reference list. If you cannot find these two types of research on your portfolio topic, you must choose another topic. •Locate the following documents in this week’s Learning Resources to access the appropriate templates, which will guide your critique of each article: •Critique Template for a Qualitative Study (see attached) •Critique Template for a Quantitative Study(see attached) •Critique Template for a Mixed-Methods Study(see attached) •Consider the fields in the templates as you review the information in each article. Begin to draft a paper in which you analyze the two research approaches as indicated below. Reflect on the overall value of both quantitative and qualitative research. If someone were to say to you, “Qualitative research is not real science,” how would you respond? To complete this Assignment: •Complete the two critiques using the appropriate templates. •Write a 2- to 3-page paper that addresses the following: •Contrast the types of information that you gained from examining the two different research approaches in the articles that you selected. •Describe the general advantages and disadvantages of the two research approaches featured in the articles. Use examples from the articles for support. •Formulate a response to the claim that qualitative research is not real science. Highlight the general insights that both quantitative and qualitative studies can provide to researchers. Support your response with references to the Learning Resources and other credible sources. •As you complete this Assignment, remember to: •Submit your paper to Grammarly and SafeAssign through the Walden Writing Center. Based on the Grammarly and SafeAssign reports, revise your paper as necessary. •Reminder: The School of Nursing requires that all papers submitted include a title page, introduction, summary, and references. The School of Nursing Sample Paper provided at the Walden Writing Center provides an example of those required elements (available from the Walden University website found in this week’s Learning Resources). All papers submitted must use this formatting. •Combine all three parts of this assignment into one Word document including both critique templates and the narrative with your references. Submit this combined document. |
Answer
Critiquing Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods
Contents
Introduction
The area of mental health has primarily been emphasized and investigated along a technical structure that continuously undervalued the social causes and development of mental health. Modern research has revolutionized the study of intersection between mental health and social factors such as poverty, children upbringing and sexuality. It has become more evident that poverty creates a cyclic pattern that offsets and promotes poor mental health in varying capacities among women, men and children. Undeniably, quantitative research has provided extensive statistical figures to identify trends and the extent of damage of poverty in mental health. In contrast, qualitative and mixed method research has provided a social approach in evaluating the growing statistics in this field (Benz and Newman, 1998). This critique compares a quantitative and mixed method researches to establish the independence and interdependence of poverty and mental health within a common environment.
Analysis
The qualitative study really puts into perspective the dominant negligence of socioeconomic factors as merely casual contributors to poor mental health. The study then focuses on poor cities and quantifies the proportion of deinstitutionalized and mental health patients. The study follows the patterns of urbanization and mental health in Canadian cities and really brings out the critical relationship between poverty and mental health in developed countries (Wilton, 2003). The study highlights a gap in policy making by consistently failing to recognize the impact of poverty completely derails any efforts to improve mental health infrastructure and any social empowerment to support it. In contrast, the mixed research study combines qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the interaction between mental health and poverty with a deeper focus on poverty patterns against sexual orientation identities. The study utilizes the Canadian Low Income Cut-Off(LICO) as a quantitative indicator of groups that operate above or below this margin (O’Gorman and Ross, 2016). The grounded theory analysis is applied to study the separation of social class, sexuality and income all in relation to mental wellness and subsequent social Support.
The qualitative study is effective in its social and humanistic appeal to the often neglected social and class stratification influencers of mental health. The research uses relatable explanations that really emphasize the neglect over social factors. In a bold demonstration, the research links this negligence to poor and misplaced policy making or solution development in mental health (Wilton, 2003). However, the study fails to employ a definitive demonstration of the administrative and managerial avenues of pursuing these challenges. Eventually, the study’s recommendations do not have a specific and technical call to action to various stakeholders. The mixed research study outlines two strong hypotheses that work in perpetual and combined self-support (O’Gorman and Ross, 2016). Indeed, the hypotheses acknowledge that mental illnesses lead to socioeconomic disadvantages as much as poverty leads to mental deterioration through stress and depression. The study then provides well distributed empirical evidence that represents socioeconomic and financial capacities within identities of majority and minority sexuality groups.
It is undoubtable that qualitative research holds rudimentary limitations especially as it continues to evolve into its own independent science. However, the interaction between scientific and social factors in modern societies necessitates a growing importance of qualitative research. In addition, the combination of social and scientific research in mixed methods provides a system that is more credible, realistic and humanistic to such emerging issues (Mahoney and Goertz, 2012).
Conclusion
Qualitative research is emerging as a standalone and strong method of investigation especially amidst extreme integration of social factors into modern living. Quantitative research must continue to adapt in its own capacity and in interaction with social research through avenues of mixed method research (Mahoney and Goertz, 2012). Mental health must thus be investigated not only with the consideration of poverty, but other interconnected social issues such as gender and sexual orientation.
References
Benz, C. and Newman, I. (1998). Qualitative-Quantitative Research Methodology: Exploring the Interactive Continuum. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Mahoney, J. and Goertz, G. (2012). A Tale of Two Culture: Qualitative and Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
O’Gorman, L. and Ross, L. (2016). Bisexuality, Poverty and Mental Health: A mixed methods analysis. Social Science and Medicine, (156), 64-72.
Wilton, R. (2003). Poverty and Mental Health: A Qualitative Study of Residential Care Facility Tenants. Community Mental Health Journal, (39) 2, 139-156.