Assignment 4

In this assignment students are expected to go through the steps to set up a qualitative research study. Unlike Assignment #3 you don't have to analyze actual data.. However you need to write and demonstrate that you can identify qualitaive data codes and themes used in qualitative research studies.

Step #1: Students should select ONE of the following research topics (thought to be susceptible to qualitative studies).

• Patient satisfaction on emergency room care

• Patient attitudes towards medical errors

• Physician attitudes towards medical errors

• Hospital successes or failures in cardiovascular care

• Patient satisfaction and primary care

• Patient barriers to pediatric care

• Patient satisfaction with maternity wards 

Step #2: Based on the topic chosen, search for published qualitative research articles related to the research topic. Use the Google Scholar website tool (https://scholar.google.com/) to do your search. Create keywords for your search using all the main words in your chosen topic above.

Step #3: Select THREE of the published articles from the search list and for EACH of these articles:

(a) State the topic and the published article you selected

(b) Summarize the qualitative data used, 

(c) identify the codes (at least 10) used in the analysis and the framework (if identifiable).

(d) identify the patterns or recurrent themes (at least 5) used in the qualitative study

(e) identify any explanations, observations, or predictions from the qualitative study that relate to the topic you chose above

(f) indicate what you consider contributions of the study to the knowledge base in health services research.

Grading Rubric for Assignment # 4