Quantitative Design Discussion

Identify an area of clinical practice interest in the adult population.

1. Consider a research study that they might conduct with this population.
2. Name the independent variable (IV) (i.e., intervention) and the dependent variable (DV) (i.e., effect of the intervention).
3. Identify extraneous variables. How would they control for those extraneous variables? Identify potential threats to internal validity.
4. Identify potential threats to external validity. How would they control for each type of potential threat?
5. What time dimension for data collection will they use?

SAMPLE SOLUTION

One area of clinical practice that is of interest to me in the adult population is the effect of pharmacotherapeutics on older adult patient falls. In this research, the independent variable is pharmacotherapeutics as it will need researcher’s manipulation while the dependent variable is patient falls because it is how the patients would be evaluated. An independent variable is a variable that requires manipulation by the researcher to establish whether it consequently results in a change in another variable – the dependent variable (Grove & Gray, 2018).
Extraneous variables are those that are not intentionally studied in research. Examples of extraneous variables in the above research study would include such things as the effect of different pre-existing conditions of participant patients on falls, the researcher’s previous knowledge, hospital floor design, experience, and patient education. To take care of these variables, the researcher must identify any extraneous variables that have been identified by previous studies. This would enable the researcher to adjust the research design accordingly. Other methods of controlling extraneous…