Research Process

The person conducting the research is called researcher, investigator, or scientist. When a researcher poses a problem or answers a question using the scientific approach, it is called a study, an investigation, or a research project. The people who are being studied are called subjects or study participants. Scientific research is mainly concerned with vehicles of thought defined as concepts. The process of developing and refining concepts is referred to as conceptualization. A construct is an abstraction or mental representation inferred from situations, events, or behaviors. Constructs are different from concepts in that the constructs are deliberately invented (or constructed) by researchers for a specific scientific purpose. These concepts or constructs are ideas that formulate a theory (a set of concepts and propositions that provide an orderly way to view phenomena). “In a theory, concepts (or constructs) are knitted together into an orderly system to explain the way in which our world and the people in it function” (Polit & Hungler, 1998, p. 22).
Nurse researchers can use one of two broad approaches to gather and analyze scientific information: Quantitative research involves the systematic collection of numerical information, often under conditions of considerable control, and the analysis of the information using statistical procedures;
qualitative research involves the systematic collection and analysis of more subjective narrative materials, using procedures in which there tends to be a minimum of researcher-imposed control. (Polit & Hungler, 1998, p. 15)