Identifying A Research Gap
Identifying A Research Gap
Identifying A Research Gap
For this worksheet task, you will identify a gap in abnormal psychology research and begin to develop a basic research question to address the identified gap.
First, review the literature from the five articles in your chosen track (three that were provided for you and two that you chose on your own). Using the Research Gap Worksheet as a guide, identify a gap in the research from your articles. Based on that research gap, develop a question to address the gap.
To complete this assignment, review the Module Four Worksheet Guidelines and Rubric document.
Note: The Research Gap Worksheet is filled out to provide an example for you to follow. Use the sheet as a template by deleting the highlighted portions and replacing them with your own content.
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Steps for identifying research gaps in the literature
Step 1: Focus Your Research Area
Before you start trying to identify gaps in the literature, you need to figure out what your area of interest is, and then focus and narrow that research area. If you don’t narrow down your initial research area of interest, you’ll end up wanting to research everything. You’ll overwhelm yourself with all the research gaps you find because there are still a lot of unanswered research questions out there.
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Do some exploratory research on your broad research idea in your course textbook, class notes, in meta-analysis, systematic, and literature reviews, and PsycINFO Thesaurus to identify more specific issues and arguments in your research area and possible relationships between them.
Read ebooks to get the “big picture” about the research area you’re interested in studying. Books and ebooks provide detailed information on your research area, put your research area in context, provide summaries of research, and help you identify major themes and relationships for your study.
Ask your advisors and other faculty about possible topics or issues within your research area of interest. That being said, you’re going to spend over a year immersed in work on your thesis, so make sure you choose issues because you find them deeply interesting, not just because your advisor recommended them.
Step 2: Read, Read, and then Read Some More
Read (a lot of) research articles: this is going to be time-demanding, but you really do need to read through a lot of research articles in your research area to become an expert in it. That being said, what you use from the articles that you read should relate directly back to your focused research questions and hypothesis. Don’t waste your time getting sidetracked by issues that don’t relate to your research questions and hypothesis.
Go to Start Finding Sources, Search Databases, and Browse Journals to find journal articles for your research area
Pay close attention to Introductions, in which authors explain why their research is important, and Suggestions for Future Research, in which authors point readers to areas which lack investigation or need future examination
Follow the research trails of seminal articles and authors using Web of Science and Scopus:
Articles
In Scopus, click on Document Search, enter the article title, click on the article title in the list of search hits, then click on View all ~ citing documents link in the right sidebar for a list of articles that have cited this article
In Web of Science, enter the article title and choose Title from the right drop down menu, then click on the Times Cited number next to the article to see a list of articles that have cited this article
Authors
In Scopus, click on Author Search, enter the last name and first initial(s) of the author, click on the author’s name in the list of search hits, then click on Cited By ~ documents for a list of articles that have cited this author
In Web of Science, enter the author name and choose Author from the right drop down menu, then click on the Times Cited number next to each article to see a list of articles that have cited this author’s article
Read meta-analyses, literature reviews, and systematic reviews: these papers delve deep into the literature, examining the trends and changes over a long period of time in your research area and summaries of previous research findings.
In PsycINFO, click on literature review, systematic review, and meta analysis under the Methodologies heading in the sidebar to the right of the list of search hits
In CINAHL, add systematic reviews to your search
In Web Of Science, check the box beside Review under the Document Type heading in the sidebar to the right of the list of search hits
Step 3: Map out the Literature:
Keep track of what the authors told you and the questions that occur to you whenever you read anything – an article, a book, a book chapter, a dissertation, etc. This will also help you write your thesis introduction later on and help you avoid unconscious plagiarism.
Use mind maps, tables, charts, pictures, post-it notes to map out the literature, whatever works for you.
Research each of your questions to see if there are people out there who had the same questions and found answers to them
Science Direct, Web of Science, and Wiley Online Library databases help you follow the research trail by listing articles that have since cited the research article you’re reading
If you find don’t find any answers to one of your questions, you’ve probably found a research gap from which you can develop a thesis hypothesis and experimental project. Get feedback from your advisors before you get too carried away,,,….
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Identifying A Research Gap
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
- Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, including a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
- Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
- One or two-sentence responses, simple statements of agreement, or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
- I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
- Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
- In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
- Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
- Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
- Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
- Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
- I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
- I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’s level and deduct points accordingly.
- As Masters’s level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
- It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
- For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
- Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
- Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
- Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
- The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
- Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
- If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
- I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
- As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
- Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
- Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
- Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
Clinical issues have profound impacts on health care providers and patients, given that they pose a significant risk to the quality of care, patient safety, and nursing staff’s wellbeing. Workplace incivility, characterized by discourteous and disrespectful actions, is typical in the nursing practice. It is among the issues that adversely affect nurses’ confidence and interprofessional collaboration. Anxiety is also high in workplaces where nursing incivility is not effectively controlled, fueling burnout and turnover (Shi et al., 2018). Effective control of nursing incivility is vital to optimizing care quality and patient safety. Since interventions should be evidence-based, it is crucial to search for evidence from credible research as summarized in the matrix worksheet.
Full citation of selected article | Article #1 | Article #2 | Article #3 | Article #4 |
Kile, D., Eaton, M., deValpine, M., & Gilbert, R. (2019). The effectiveness of education and cognitive rehearsal in managing nurse‐to‐nurse incivility: A pilot study. Journal of Nursing Management, 27(3), 543-552. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12709 | Abdollahzadeh, F., Asghari, E., Ebrahimi, H., Rahmani, A., & Vahidi, M. (2017). How to prevent workplace incivility?: Nurses’ perspective. Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research, 22(2), 157-163. https://doi.org/10.4103/1735-9066.205966 | Armstrong, N. (2018). Management of nursing workplace incivility in the health care settings: A systematic review. Workplace Health & Safety, 66(8), 403-410. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2165079918771106 | Shi, Y., Guo, H., Zhang, S., Xie, F., Wang, J., Sun, Z., … & Fan, L. (2018). Impact of workplace incivility against new nurses on job burn-out: A cross-sectional study in China. BMJ Open, 8(4), e020461. doi:10.1136/ bmjopen-2017-020461 | |
Why you chose this article and/or how it relates to the clinical issue of interest (include a brief explanation of the ethics of research related to your clinical issue of interest) | It is a comprehensive article exploring the importance of enhanced awareness through educational programs in reducing nurse-to-nurse incivility. The article explains how cognitive rehearsal techniques can help nurses to cope with incivility. Al-Ghabeesh and Qattom (2018) also supported the role of cognitive rehearsal in helping nurses to cope with workplace problems since it prepares them mentally to cope with stressing situations. Regarding ethics, participation was voluntary and participants’ information treated anonymously. | The article depicts workplace incivility as a disturbing phenomenon, detrimental to clinicians’ health and care delivered. Due to incivility’s psychological and somatic effects, the article investigates how it can be managed from a nurse’s perspective. Concerning research ethics, informed consent was observed to ensure that nurses participated willingly. Nurses were also allowed to withdraw willingly without getting penalized in any way. | The article was chosen since it shows the severity of workplace incivility among nurses and proposes evidence-based interventions. According to Armstrong (2018), incivility has a destructive effect as a cause of emotional upset among nurses, to the extent of risking patient care. This observation coincides with Alshehry et al. (2021) finding that workplace incivility increases the occurrence of unsafe medication administration practices. On ethics, Armstrong (2018) avoided search biases by summarizing data from different databases. | The article is an in-depth exploration of the implications of workplace incivility in health practice. It describes how workplace incivility is correlated with anxiety and job burn-out among nurses, necessitating evidence-based interventions. Regarding ethics of research, consent and anonymity are critical. Participants consented to participate in the survey and information provided was treated anonymously. |
Brief description of the aims of the research of each peer-reviewed article | The aim of the research was to help nurses to recognize incivility and reduce its impacts by confronting it through cognitive rehearsal techniques. The ability to confront incivility would improve job satisfaction. | Abdollahzadeh et al. (2017) suggested that many articles have investigated the effects of workplace incivility without proposing practical interventions. In response, the article’s primary aim is to determine how workplace incivility can be prevented in health care settings from a nurses’ perspective. | Guided by the premise that workplace incivility should be effectively controlled, the study critiques and summarized evidence that can help nursing staff to manage workplace incivility. It focused on the practical interventions that can be applied universally as nurses overcome this chronic problem. | The article’s primary aim was to investigate the impacts of workplace incivility on new nursing staff. It further examined the role that resilience plays in moderating incivility-job burn-out connection. |
Brief description of the research methodology used Be sure to identify if the methodology used was qualitative, quantitative, or a mixed-methods approach. Be specific. | Kile et al. (2019) conducted a mixed method, pilot study. Data before and after nurses received cognitive rehearsal training were obtained via surveys for comparative analysis.
|
Data was collected via interviews. Researchers used the qualitative descriptive study design. Thus, the article is qualitative research. | The study is a systematic review of current and relevant evidence on workplace incivility. Ten studies were reviewed, implying that it is a quantitative study. | The study was a cross-sectional online survey. Participants (903 registered nurses) completed online questionnaires in May of 2016 in China. Hence, it was a quantitative research. |
A brief description of the strengths of each of the research methodologies used, including reliability and validity of how the methodology was applied in each of the peer-reviewed articles you selected. | The key strength of a mixed method approach to research is enhancing the understanding of quantitative and qualitative results’ contradictions. Regarding validity and reliability, researchers use various methods to gather information in mixed methods studies (Schoonenboom & Johnson, 2017). These methods supplement each other making the data more valid and reliable. | Generally, qualitative research allows issues to be examined in-depth. Interviews also allow researchers to ask specific questions that can be redirected as situations oblige (Thorsteinson, 2018). Regarding reliability and validity, interviews allowed one-on-one correspondence and the interview questions were designed in a way that all the participants answered the same questions despite difference locations. | A key strength of systematic reviews is getting a quick answer about a particular clinical issue from previous studies. In this case, information is readily available. Systematic reviews are highly reliable and valid too. Their conclusion about a clinical issue is derived from multiple studies that the researcher(s) assess for relevance and quality. | As a common data collection method, questionnaires have various strengths. It is possible to test many people quickly. Data (quantitative) can be generated and analyzed easily. On reliability, questionnaires facilitate the collection of large volume of data (Oden, 2019). It was the same case in the article. The results were also consistent by showing a positive correlation between workplace incivility, anxiety, and burnout. |
General Notes/Comments | The article expands the PICOT by explaining how an educational intervention (cognitive rehearsal) can advance workplace civility. It illustrates how a positive workplace can be promoted to ensure that patients receive safe and efficient care. | The article is a reliable resource that expands knowledge on workplace incivility prevention from a nurses’ perspective. It explains how improving nurses’ skills and communication ability and supporting nurses can be integral in reducing workplace incivility in health care organizations. | The article is highly informative on the implications of workplace incivility in health care settings. It further proposes interventions necessary to manage incivility including educational training on incivility to enhance awareness and communication skills. Overall, it is a useful resource to develop the PICOT. | As nurses continue solving clinical issues, application of evidence-based research is vital. The article expands research on the effects of workplace incivility, which shows the need for policy interventions and other practical solutions. |
Conclusion
The research articles in the worksheet evaluate workplace incivility among nurses from multiple dimensions. Causes of nursing incivility have been studied besides impacts of the clinical problem and possible prevention measures. Interventions such as resilience training and cognitive rehearsal techniques have been proposed. The articles will be further critiqued to get the best evidence to be used as the basis for change implementation in nursing practice to reduce incivility.
References
Abdollahzadeh, F., Asghari, E., Ebrahimi, H., Rahmani, A., & Vahidi, M. (2017). How to prevent workplace incivility?: Nurses’ perspective. Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research, 22(2), 157-163. https://doi.org/10.4103/1735-9066.205966
Al-Ghabeesh, S. H., & Qattom, H. (2019). Workplace bullying and its preventive measures and productivity among emergency department nurses. Israel Journal of Health Policy research, 8(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4268-x
Alshehry, A. S., Alquwez, N., Almazan, J., Namis, I. M., & Cruz, J. P. (2019). Influence of workplace incivility on the quality of nursing care. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 28(23-24), 4582-4594. DOI: 10.1111/jocn.15051
Armstrong, N. (2018). Management of nursing workplace incivility in the health care settings: A systematic review. Workplace Health & Safety, 66(8), 403-410. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2165079918771106
Kile, D., Eaton, M., deValpine, M., & Gilbert, R. (2019). The effectiveness of education and cognitive rehearsal in managing nurse‐to‐nurse incivility: A pilot study. Journal of Nursing Management, 27(3), 543-552. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12709
Oden, C. (2019). Validity and reliability of questionnaires: how to check. ProjectTopics. https://www.projecttopics.org/validity-and-reliability-of-questionnaires-how-to-check.html
Shi, Y., Guo, H., Zhang, S., Xie, F., Wang, J., Sun, Z., … & Fan, L. (2018). Impact of workplace incivility against new nurses on job burn-out: A cross-sectional study in China. BMJ Open, 8(4), e020461. doi:10.1136/ bmjopen-2017-020461
Schoonenboom, J., & Johnson, R. B. (2017). How to construct a mixed methods research design. KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 69(2), 107-131. doi: 10.1007/s11577-017-0454-1
Thorsteinson, T. J. (2018). A meta‐analysis of interview length on reliability and validity. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 91(1), 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12186