qualitative study design.

This research is aimed at investigating the barriers and facilitators of new graduate nurses to engage successfully in the Australian Emergency Department. The study will be based in the local district hospitals in Australia and will target new graduate nurses working in the emergency departments of the hospitals. The phenomenon of interest will be their engagement and the nature of the job in the emergency departments (Doetzel, Rankin, & Then, 2016). The research will also aim to study the factors that hinder the success of the nurses in the various hospitals and those that promote efficient service delivery in the hospitals.

The theoretical perspective will be to monitor the emergency responses handled by graduate nurses in district hospitals. It will focus on the responses of new graduate nurses who treat critical cases such as internal bleeding (Doetzel, Rankin, & Then, 2016). By checking their involvement in emergency response, it will be easy to explor their barriers and facilitators in the emergency departments.

Q2

What are the barriers and facilitators for new graduate nurses to engage successfully in Australian emergency departments?

Q3

The qualitative descriptive design will be the most appropriate type of qualitative study design to address this question. The descriptive qualitative research is mainly conducted through semi-structure interviews, which will be used to collect the data required for the topic (Starks, 2007). The interviews will require particepents to respond truthfully to semi-structured questions. Their experiences in the work environment will provide adequate information that will be analyzed to obtain the desired data. Besides the interviews, it will be necessary to monitor their conduct in the emergency department. This can be achieved through the use of questionnaires, which will contain the questions to propagate the collection of the data required (Palinkas, 2014).

Q4

The study population will be new graduate nurses who are working in Australians hospitals. This group will consist of nurses who have completed their degree in nursing for a period not exceeding three years. They are considered new graduate nurses as they do not have much experience in employment. Most of the fresh graduates are aged between 22 years to 26 years.

For an individual to qualify for the study population, they need to be fresh graduates and working in their first employment station. This means that they should be in their first job. The nurses also need to be working in the emergency departments of hospitals in any Australian state. They also need not be more than 26 years of age and should not be enrolled for a master’s degree. Finally, they are not graduating from international universities.

The study sample will consist of about 25 nurses, all of whom will be interviewed through one-on-one interviews. They will also be required to fill in questionnaires, which will also aid in the collection of the information.

The sampling method used in this research is purposive sampling. The selection of the sample population will entirely be based on the judgment of the researcher. The recruitment of participants, therefore, who meet the eligibility criteria will be selected through heterogenous sampling where a group of participants with diverse characteristics will be selected to take part in the research (Palinkas, 2014). The participants who are expressive, articulate, and able to communicate their experiences in a reflective manner need to be available and willing to take part in the study.

Q5

To collect qualitative data, the primary data collection method will be face-to-face interviews (Starks, 2007). The interview will be semi-structured in a way that all the participants will respond to pre-written questions (Neergaard, Olesen, Andersen, & Sondergaard, 2009). The questions will be organized in a way that allows the interviewer to learn more about the participant as well as capture the desired information to answer the study question. An example of interview questions is to ask the participants to explain the difficulties of their jobs. The interviews will also allow the participants to express their opinions on the topic of interest. The interaction will allow the interviewer to collect as much information from the participant while seeking all the necessary clarifications from the interviewer, thus facilitating the optimal collection of the data (Palinkas, 2014).

The interviews will take place over a relatively long time. This is because each session will last for about 30 minutes. Since it will be impossible to conduct more than three interviews in a day due to the logistics of organizing the meetings, therefore, the interviews will be conducted for a period not exceeding two weeks. The long period will allow for the data to be organized.

All the interviews will be tape-recorded, and it will be conducted prior to the main interviews. Due to the variance of answers and other uncontrollable factors, the interviews are expected to vary in length, from 30 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes. The interviews will be informal, open-ended (Neergaard, Olesen, Andersen, & Sondergaard, 2009), transcripted and will be conducted in a dialogue manner.

Another method that will be used in collecting the data is the use of questionnaires (Palinkas, 2014). An example question that will be contained in the questionnaire is a close-ended question asking the participant to rate, on a scale of one to five, the friendliness of colleagues and physicians in the place of work. The questionnaires will contain both closed and open-ended questions to facilitate the collection of the data. The closed questions will include the opinions of the participants and it will also allow the collection of the personal data of the participants (Neergaard, Olesen, Andersen, & Sondergaard, 2009). The open-ended questions will be structured to facilitate the collection of metadata and opinions of the participants on the topic of interest. The questionnaires will be administered to the particepents physically, or through google forms for the participants who cannot be reached physically. The questionnaires will ease the collection of qualitative data (Palinkas, 2014).

In addition to the questionnaires and interviews, the expectation to receive other data throughout the study, such as comments from the nurses and existing literature is considered.

Q6

The research is expected to provide adequate and efficient information for the analysis and the data obtained during the study will form an adequate basis for the accurate determination of the barriers and facilitators for new graduate nurses in emergency departments in Australian hospitals (Shenton, 2004). As the data obtained will be firsthand, it will be easy to provide comprehensive findings that is trustworthy since it will be obtained directly from the participants (Cope, 2014).

To determine the rigor of the research, it will be necessary to analyze the criteria for the study of trustworthiness, as discussed by Shenton (Shenton, 2004). They are as follows:

i. Credibility

Credibility refers to the steps taken to demonstrate the truth of the data (Cope, 2014). To effectively determine the credibility of the research, it will be necessary to make decisions based on the analysis of the data and not out of assumptions. By peer debrieving, it will also be necessary to spend adequate time interviewing the participants to facilitate the collection of quality data, which will be significant in the production of credible results. Various data sources, such as the use of questionnaires, interviews, and collection of data from secondary sources by different person will be necessary for increasing the credibility (Shenton, 2004).

ii. Dependability

This refers to the ability of the information to remain stable over time and taken under similar conditions (Cope, 2014). To ensure the dependability of the data, it will be necessary to conduct the interviews under similar conditions in a separate and comparesion way (Shenton, 2004).

iii. Confirmability

Confirmability refers to the integrity of the data whereby the data represents the responses of the participant and not the opinion of the researcher (Cope, 2014). Confirmability can be enforced through audit trails, whereby the methods, decisions, and conclusions are checked for any inconsistencies which can then be altered to match the responses of the participants (Shenton, 2004).

iv. Transferability

Transferability is the characteristic where the research findings can be applied to other settings (Cope, 2014). To ensure the transferability of the data, it will be necessary to describe the context and setting of the research to allow the understanding of the nature of the environment in which the information obtained in the research can be applied in other similar settings (Shenton, 2004).

v. Authenticity

It refers to the extent to which the feelings and emotions of the participants are accurately descriped (Cope, 2014). Authenticity can be achieved through the use of direct quotes from the interviews to emphasize the responses of the participants (Shenton, 2004).

Study Limitations

The major limitation of this study is the inconsistency of the data, which will be as a result of human errors. People are bound to make both intentional and unintentional mistakes. Thus, it is likely that some participants will give false information due to personal biases (Fouka & Mantzorou, 2011). Similarly, the fact that the data will be limited to only district hospitals means that the data obtained might not be a true reflection of the situation in othe

r hospitals.

Another study limitation that might face this research is the likely divergence of patients' information during the interview. Since the study is likely to invoke their personal experiences, there is a high likelihood that patients’ confidentiality will be breached (Palinkas, 2014). Thus, to prevent disclosing any patients’ information, the participants will withhold a lot of information. This limitation will challenge the originality of the data, thus resulting in incomplete information.

Q7

The ethical implications include the likely non-inclusion of a variety of participants in the study (Fouka & Mantzorou, 2011). Since Australia is an ethnically rich country, during the selection of the participants, there is a high chance that the sample population will not be ethnically inclusive. The participants need to be drawn from all the ethnic groups within the country, to ensure a fair representation of all the Australians.

Another ethical implication is the preservation of privacy and confidentiality of the participants, as well as the information that will be obtained during the research (Fouka & Mantzorou, 2011). During the interviews, the participants are likely to mention the cases that they had responded to. However, due to the need for confidentiality and privacy, this limitation might result in bias, as the preservation of patients’ privacy might hinder the efficient collection of information (Neergaard, Olesen, Andersen, & Sondergaard, 2009). The participants will be compelled to withhold some information to protect the privacy of the patients.

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