After reading the article by J. W. Kinneer, I had to discuss the reliability and validity of th. Question
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After reading the article by J. W. Kinneer,
I had to discuss the reliability and validity of this study, and support my statements with examples and references.
I am now stuck with the response: Respond to at least two peers offering additional support with new information or challenging their responses with data.
These are the two posts that I need to respond individually to including one new scholarly nursing resource each, I am stuck
Sheila Bowen Jones
Online and For-Profit Nursing Degrees
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NUR551WK5InitialPost
This study used the cross-sectional survey methodology using health care recruiters who were involved in registered nurse recruitment. The participants were asked to answer 4 questions about four degree options for candidates when doing RN recruitment. These were traditional college + classroom, traditional college + online, for-profit college + classroom and for-profit college + online. Although the researcher did break down the study participants by age group, gender, educational attainment and years of recruitment experience, the type of educational degree detail, specifically for those that obtained a bachelor’s degree, was not included in the summary of their responses to demographic questions. Since this was a core element to the study itself, it should be surmised that the researchers would look at this as well in the characteristic breakdown of their participant summary since these are the very people who are recruiting the nurses from the four different types of degree programs. This leads me to question the internal validity of the study because we don’t know what biases might be interjected by the nurse recruiters in the study as to their own baccalaureate training, for those that this pertains to.
Another point to consider with the validity of the study is the age breakdown of the nurse recruiter participants. The largest participants in age brackets were the 41-50- and 51-60-year-old at 29% and 40%, respectively. This study by Kinneer was done in 2014. If I make the assumption as the reader of the study that the age group bracket of 51-60-year-olds completed their bachelor’s degrees 25 years ago, that would be around the year 1989 give or take 5 years because of the age range and if they attended and completed their BSN immediately after high school, there were very few, if any for-profit nursing schools and no online options for education at that time. So, could another bias be at play here in that most people refer to their own experiences as the optimal way to do things, thus negatively viewing for-profit or online programs as a viable option for nursing education? This is termed experience bias. People act on the plausible assumption that the future resembles the past, but this assumption does not always hold (Hertwig et al., 2018). One question I have is how many in each of the two age brackets, the 41-50 and the 51-60-year-olds rated the traditional + classroom as the optimal option for a nursing education.
If the researchers considered reflexivity of the participants, the study materials do not demonstrate this. Reflexivity is the process of reflecting critically on the self and of analyzing and noting personal values and beliefs that could affect the data collection and interpretation (Polit and Beck, 2022).
These points alone lead me to not give full credence or have trustworthiness in this study without further investigation. Methodological decisions and the careful implementation of those decisions – whether they be about sampling, intervention design, measurement, research design, or analysis – inevitably affect the rigor of a study. All of these can affect validity, and hence the interpretation of the results Polit & Beck, 2022). The credibility or reliability of this study of this data over time and over conditions does not lend itself to be sufficient and thereby is not reliable, in my opinion. It would be interesting to redo this study today and perhaps with a different participant sample, after COVID and the strong propensity for online learning in all areas of education.
This study by Kinneer states that in 2008, only 50% of registered nurses held a BSN qualification or higher yet in a study by Linton and colleagues, (2019), it states that 56% of nurses hold a BSN qualification or higher. While the expectation was to be at 80% by 2020, it is apparent that this goal is not yet met. Educating health systems, recruiters, potential nurses and nurses seeking continuing education to advance their degrees about the potential for learning via these non-traditional educational means is vital to increase the baccalaureate prepared nurses that care for our citizens. Raising expectations for these online and for-profit programs, along with expecting accreditation is vital for continued quality improvement of the nurses these programs turn out.
References
Hertwig, R., Lejarraga, T., & Hogarth, R. M. (2018). Experience and description: exploring two paths to
knowledge. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(2), 123-128.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417740645
Linton, M., Dabney, B. W., Knecht, L., & Koonmen, J. (2019). Student expectations of an RN-to-BSN
program: a qualitative analysis of student and faculty perspectives. Sage Open Nursing, 5,
https://doi.org/10.1177/2377960819897250
Polit, D.F, & Beck, C. T. (2022). Essentials of nursing research: Appraising evidence for nursing
practice (10th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
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NUR 551
After reading the article by J. W. Kinneer, I had to discuss the reliability and validity of th
