Student Guidelines for Research

Introduction and General Information

Completion of a scholarly project is expected of every graduate student in the MSN program.  The project is carried out by 2-3 students with the advice and consultation of the project advisor and project committee.

Scholarly projects take a variety of forms.  For example, scholarly projects may be a detailed community assessment, culminating in recommendations to enhance community wellness, the development and piloting of an action plan based on a health policy concern, or an article recommending primary care guidelines based on a review of evidence-based practice recommendations.  Students may choose to replicate a published study or evaluate an education strategy; in those cases the final product may be a research report.

The research should be based on a thorough understanding of the topic being studied.  Students are encouraged to base their research on a review of the literature in the area of interest.  The research chair has the responsibility of advising students to select a different topic if the advisor is of the opinion that the initially selected topic is beyond the scope of the MSN student.

Study Designs:

Descriptive (may include gathering and analysis of qualitative data such as content analysis of interviews, journals, observations) Descriptive studies may emphasize the description of the variable(s) of interest, or include correlation and/or comparison among variables.

Intervention studies emphasize the manipulation of variables with a comparison of outcomes.  It is important for the student to remember that intervention studies may take longer to complete than descriptive studies, depending on the interval between the exposure to the intervention and the measurement of the outcomes.

Pilot studies are designed to provide information about the feasibility of conducting a larger study.  The appropriateness of the research setting, the use of specific instruments and the study design and proposed methodology may all be evaluated in a pilot study.

It should be noted that qualitative designs, such as ethnography, ethno nursing, grounded theory and phenomenology are deliberately excluded from the desings that students in the MSN program may use.

Regardless of the research design, any statistical data analysis is limited to descriptive an univariate statistical measures.  The use of multivariate methods is beyond the statistical preparation required in the MSN program.

Theoretical frameworks that guide research may be drawn from nursing or related disciplines.  Students must remember that a theoretical framework must directly relate to the conduct of the study, to the analysis of the data and to the description of the findings.

The research document must be written in English and be free of grammatical errors, demonstrating competence in scientific writing.  That is, the writing must be concise, well organized and logical, showing a consistent attention to detail.  Individuals who have difficulty in writing to this standard are required to consult with the Writing Centers of the university whose campus is most convenient to them.

Clarion University                (814) 393-2173

Edinboro University            (814) 732-2682

Slippery Rock University    (724) 738-2654

Formatting the Scholarly Project

The faculty have selected the formatting style published by the American Psychological Association (APA) as the style used for the preparation of all written assignments in the MSN program. It is important that you become familiar with this formatting style and use it correctly and consistently when preparing the report of your Scholarly Project.

The following URL will provide a summary of the APA style and also references to the 5th edition of the APA manual on which that summary is based.  http://owl.english.edu/handouts/research/r_apa.html