Analysis of Lab Reports
Afsana Akter
Hostos Community College
ENG 202, 316A
Prof. Pamela Stemberg
11th May 2022
Analysis of Two Lab Reports
The current qualitive analysis compares and contrast the written components of two lab reports revolving around nursing skills to enhance high quality in the provision of health care services. The first lab report centers its research on the core clinical and performance skills that can be utilized in the recruitment process to ensure the United Arab Emirates (UAE) attracts and retain capable and competent nurses to enhance high quality care in the region. The second lab report is a phenomenological study that focuses on examining the experiences acquired and the nursing skills honed by various undergraduate nursing students when using high-fidelity patient simulators in clinical settings. Both the lab reports are well designed and analyzed to reflect on the eight elements of research ranging from the title, abstract, introduction, materials, methods, results, discussion, conclusion and references.
Title
The title of the first report being analyzed is “synthesizing core nursing skills to support behavioral-based interviews for nurses in the UAE: A nominal group study.” The title of the second report being analyzed is “Undergraduate Nursing Students’ Experiences When Examining Nursing Skills in Clinical Simulation Laboratories in High- Fidelity Patient Simulators: A phenomenological Research Study.” Both the titles contain specific and unambiguous keywords that can be used by search engines to expound accurately on the scope, purpose and content of the research. Both titles are placed at the start of the research and contain organized key words as per the context of the research to allow the reader to easily summarize the main focus of the study at a glance. For instance, it is very evident from the titles that the first report is a nominal group study while the second report is a phenomenological study. In addition, both the titles of the lab reports contain independent and dependent variables. For example, “synthesizing core nursing skills” is the independent variable in the first lab report while “to support behavioral-based interviews for nurses in the UAE,” is the dependent variable. In the second lab report, “examining nursing skills in clinical simulation laboratories with high-fidelity simulators” is the independent variables while “undergraduate nursing students’ experiences” is the dependent variables. The authors manipulate these variables to analyze, interpret and basically drive the research process.
Abstract
The abstract of the first lab report states a clear objective by seeking to develop the key clinical and performance skills that can be structured in interview questions to aid in the selection of competent nurses particularly in the UAE. The authors include a brief background information on the research problem by stating that the worldwide shortage of nurses and the UAE dependence on foreign nurses with clinical and educational competence warrants the need for the selection of highly skilled nurses to sustain the country’s health care sectors. The abstract also provides an overview of the methodological approach used to explore the research problem by indicating that the study utilized the three cycles of a virtual nominal group technique to obtain responses regarding clinical and performance skills from thirty frontline nurses working in the pediatric, outpatient and transitional care. The abstract simply states the results of the revealed that ten clinical skills and performance skills were obtained from each specialty area. However, from the abstract, it is clear that only communication and critical thinking skills were singled out as key performance skills while, administration use, troubleshooting, cardiac monitoring and recognizing arrhythmias were the four competent skills that facilitate success in clinical settings. The authors finalize by indicating that the identified skills not only provide a guide to achieving a well-informed selection process but also have positive implications on other nursing management aspects ranging from staff appraisal and orientation and continuous professional development. The abstract is presented in an organized manner that puts more emphasis on conveying the rationale of the research conducted by identifying the paper’s objective, background information, method, main results obtained, conclusion and the implication of the study on nursing management.
The abstract of the second lab report states a problem statement in the research by indicating that the use of simulation has been a widely to for enhance clinical skills among undergraduate nursing students but the pedagogical approach lacks enough evidence thus requires more knowledge for its effective use. The authors clearly outline two clear objectives by indicating that the main aim of the research was to explore the experiences of nursing students when using high fidelity patient simulators and the other aim was to analyze the similar experiences during exam settings. The authors summarize their methods by stating that they utilized both the phenomenological approach and qualitative interviews to examine the various learning experiences of nursing students in examination settings and simulation laboratories. They also summarized core findings and results from the methodological approach used which revealed that assessment of students’ knowledge and nursing skills were valuable competence tools irrespective of whether they excelled in examinations or failed. However, the authors concludes that the use of patient simulators authenticated examinations and students’ reflections and constant feedback are the most effective strategies to enhance skills in nursing education. The abstract contains a well-defined paragraph which are coherent with the problem statement, objective of the paper, methodology, results and conclusions. The language used is also easy to read and comprehend by third parties. However, the abstract includes complicated key words such as “high-fidelity patient simulators” and “pedagogical approach” which readers must conduct qualitative research on to understand both their in-depth meanings and backgrounds.
Introduction
The introduction of the first lab report provides an overview of the prior evidence-based research on the problem statement by identifying the challenges that undermine the quality of UAE health care systems. The challenges range from few Emirati nurses to increased dependence on foreign nurses with diverse cultural, religious, educational and linguistic thus making it harder to achieve uniformity in healthcare systems. This dependence is also associated with continuous mobility of the nursing workforce as working in the UAE is only considered as a transitional stage that open opportunities for international recruiters. The authors provide a strong thesis statement indicating that the UAE have been forming recruitment policies that supports situational interviewing during recruitment to exponentially heighten the health care industries. The introduction provides essential background context that aligns with the essay’s topic, a strong thesis statement to indicate the writers main premise and a sense of a summarized overview statement to reveal concepts in a wider concept.
The introduction of the second lab report begins with a broad research topic which demonstrates that the current complexity in health care systems is caused by increased technological advances, patient care and emergence of different health specialties which demands exploration of literature for more in-depth knowledge.
This lab report builds from previous research by Berragan and Moule (2011) who demonstrated that the use of stimulation in examinations proved to be an effective and innovative approach that boost clinical nursing skills. Accordingly, the authors indicate that simulations methods such as case studies and patient simulators are also currently utilized in the modern world but mostly in teaching clinical nursing skills. The authors provide a strong thesis statement indicating that high patient simulators are effective during nursing education as they provide real time exposure thus enabling them to gain the skills of confidence and competence that will be useful in clinical situations. However, the authors offer a conclusive statement demonstrating that the evidence in favor of the approach is not sufficient enough ultimately requiring further knowledge. Ideally, this type of introduction adopts the funnel-like structure as hypothesized by Woods (2020) which recommends introduction paragraphs to be logically developed from a broader perspective to more specific ones.
Materials and Methods
The first lab report outlines both the materials and equipment used in the course of the research. For the methodological approach, the report demonstrates that the study design incorporated a qualitative research technique termed the Nominal Group Technique to facilitate solving of strategic problems, generation of ideas and rank the respondents’ ideas based on the priority of the research. For the materials used, the authors reveal that the UAE used the NGT in combination with the teleconferencing and voting interaction systems to have an in-depth understanding on the various challenges facing healthcare sectors and allows all participants to express their ideas in a logical manner.
The second lab report does not describe the materials used but presents the phenomenological approach from Dahlberg, Dahlberg and Nystrom (2008) in a clear manner. The authors indicates that the approach was previously used to explore the experiences of graduate nursing students in clinical settings and its overall impact on learning.
Results
In the first lab report, the authors indicate that all the 30 participants including staff nurses, females, females and people with bachelor’s in nursing were active and had received high scores when rated based on the performance appraisal. The results obtained demonstrated that the duplicate responses from the 30 participants were briefly narrowed down from 80-100 clinical skills to 28-30 skills. Both clinical and performance skills were thereafter ranked based on the three departments. The author indicates that the outpatient clinics ranked medical administration and physical assessment as their most preferred clinical skills and professionalism and communication as the preferred performance skills. The pediatric department, just like the outpatient ranked the medical administration as top skills and added the skill of assessment of respiratory problems as the other top clinical skills. The department preferred communication and problem solving as the other top critical performance skills. On the other hand, the telecare department revealed that their top crucial clinical skills were in cardiac life support, monitoring and identification of arrythmias. Unlike other departments, their top ranked performance skills were time management and critical thinking.
The second lab report demonstrates that irrespective of the student’s performance in examination, the use of high value simulators is a valuable assessment tool that effortlessly absorbs the student’s attention and demonstrated the skills needed appropriately thus preparing them effectively for the real-world life. The author states that the simulators enabled students to easily integrate theoretical framework with practical work and scrutinize their reflections while conducting practice.
Discussions
The first lab report expounds further on the research by demonstrating that the long-term impact of developing competent core skills is more critical than the actual results because some of the results obtained may not be limited beyond the study setting thus can only work at national level and not international. Therefore, the authors recommend conducting the NGT exercise on a continuous basis to accommodate the scope of practice and other core skills.
The second lab report basically offers insights on the experiences obtained from using high fidelity simulators where it is proved that they stimulate learning process, motivate students, and enhance visual, verbal and feedbacks. The authors indicate that nursing students can gain new insights through incorporating their actions and knowledge in reflection exercises during examinations.
Conclusions
The first lab report introduces new informational insight indicating that the current nursing recruitment are unstructured and subjective thus fail to accurately assess the diverse educational background and experiences of nurses. The authors summarize by indicating that positive reflective thoughts and positive past behaviors are the two crucial fundamental indicators that can be used to structure credible situational interviews.
In the second lab report, the authors provide familiar suggestions from the research paper indicating that teachers should conduct examinations in simulation strategies, incorporate high-fidelity simulators to make the simulation process more authentic and, nursing students should utilize feedbacks, visuals and verbal reflections to enhance learning. The authors have also indicated that the various challenges in clinical simulations must be carefully examined to encourage students to learn in a safe and positive environment.
References
The first lab report lacks references while the second lab report is cited correctly according to the instructions set out in the latest 7th APA formatting guide. The references in the second lab report are also arranged in alphabetical order and formatting with the hanging style.
Conclusion
In summary, it is evident that the two lab reports are well defined, informative and arranged in a systematic manner. Both reports provide evidence-based research and logical reasoning to support the research problem under investigation. Both the reports extend beyond the eight elements listed and further provide in-depth implications of the research to enable the readers to explore various literatures thus gain broader insights on trivial issues.
References
Al, Y. N., Ahmad, A. M., McCreaddie, M., & Al Hussini, L. B. E. (2021). Synthesizing core nursing skills to support behavioral‐based interviews for nurses in the UAE: A nominal group study. Journal of Nursing Management (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), 29(5), 953–961. https://doi-org.hostos.ezproxy.cuny.edu/10.1111/jonm.13232.
Sundler, A J., Pettersson, A., Berglund, M. (2015)Undergraduate nursing students’ experiences when examining nursing skills in clinical simulation laboratories with high-fidelity patient simulators: A phenomenological research study. Nurse education today, 35(12): 1257-61http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2015.04.008.
