I’m going to be completely honest with you all. I was incredibly nervous to take this
course. Truthfully, I absolutely hated nursing research during my undergraduate studies. For
some reason I just couldn’t get a good grasp on it and I just felt that the paper we had to write
was painful. I decided to take this course during my first semester just to get it out of the way. I
was pleasantly surprised with how much I learned and have grown to actually care for nursing
research during this semester. I really enjoyed breaking the paper down into four different
sections. I was able to fully understand each section and build upon it for the next week. For the
first time ever, I was able to see the importance of nursing research. I feel much more confident
in nursing research. I absolutely don’t feel as though I am an expert at this point but I definitely
have a better baseline. I would even be interested in conducting an actual study someday. If you
told me that I would feel this way eight weeks ago, I would have absolutely laughed in your face.
During the last eigh weeks I have become very passionate about my nursing research topic.
Gray, Grove & Sutherland (2017) define research as, “The diligent, systematic inquiry or
investigation to validate and refine existing knowledge and generate new ideas” (p.1). I feel that
nursing research is an incredibly important part of nursing and health care in general. It is
important that we don’t become stagnant and too comfortable in our skill. The world is
continually changing and evolving. I believe that we should be doing the same. With nursing
research we will be able to explore new options and areas of medicine and health care that we
never thought possible. We will be able to conduct studies to discover the best possible care and
treatment options for people.
One of the primary goals of a professional nurse is to be the patients advocate and
provide optimal care on the basis of evidence obtained through research (Tingen, Burnett,
Murchison, &Zhu, 2009). At the graduate level, I feel that my role is to learn the importance of
conducting nursing research. I absolutely accomplished that during the course of this semester. It
is also important that graduate students learn the basics and foundation of conducting an actual
research. At this point, I feel confident that I will be able to come up with a study and be able to
follow the steps of the process to completion. I absolutely don’t feel that I am an expert at this
point, but I definitely don’t feel that I am completely in the dark as I was prior to taking this
course.
During the course of this semester, I felt like giving up multiple times. I did not think that
I was making great progress and sometimes I did feel a little lost. However, looking back I can
definitely see how far I have progressed. The bible says, “Let us not become weary in doing
good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galations 6:9, New
Living Translation). I absolutely feel that I am reaping the harvest of all of my hard work this
semester. I can’t wait to see all of the nursing research we all perform in the future.
References
Gray, J., Grove, S. K., & Sutherland, S. (2017). Burns and Groves the practice of nursing
research appraisal, synthesis, and generation of evidence. St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.
