TEST BANK
Polit and Beck Canadian Essentials of Nursing Research
Kevin Woo PhD RN FAPWCA
4th Edition
,Table of Contents
Chapter 01 Introduction to Nursing Research in an Evidence-Based Practice Environment 1
Chapter 02 Fundamentals of Evidence-Based Nursing Practice 8
Chapter 03 Key Concepts and Steps in Quantitative and Qualitative Research 16
Chapter 04 Reading and Critiquing Research Articles 23
Chapter 05 Ethics in Research 31
Chapter 06 Research Problems, Research Questions, and Hypotheses 38
Chapter 07 Finding and Reviewing Research Evidence in the Literature 46
Chapter 08 Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks 54
Chapter 09 Quantitative Research Design 60
Chapter 10 Sampling and Data Collection in Quantitative Studies 73
Chapter 11 Qualitative Designs and Approaches 85
Chapter 12 Sampling and Data Collection in Qualitative Studies 93
Chapter 13 Mixed Methods and Other Special Types of Research 101
Chapter 14 Statistical Analysis of Quantitative Data 109
Chapter 15 Interpretation and Clinical Significance in Quantitative Research 124
Chapter 16 Analysis of Qualitative Data 130
Chapter 17 Trustworthiness and Integrity in Qualitative Research 137
Chapter 18 Systematic Reviews-Meta-Analysis and Metasynthesis 144
,______________________________________________________________________________________________
Test Bank - Polit and Beck Canadian Essentials of Nursing Research, 4th Edition (Woo, 2019)
Chapter 1. Introduction to Nursing Research in an Evidence-Based
Practice Environment
1. Which group is best served by the development of a rigorous base of evidence for
nursing practice?
A) Nursing administrators
B) Practicing nurses
C) Nurses' clients
D) Health care policymakers
2. Which is an example of a clinical nursing research question?
A) What percentage of nurses have a master's or doctorate degree?
B) What factors contribute to clients' risk of falling during a hospitalization?
C) In what ways do nursing students benefit from a course on evidence-based
practice?
D) What course of action do nursing students pursue when faced with a moral
dilemma?
3. Which is an especially important goal for the nursing profession?
A) Conducting research to better understand the context of nursing practice
B) Establishing a solid base of evidence for practice through disciplined research
C) Documenting the role nursing serves in society
D) Establishing research priorities
4. In several countries, research has come to play an important role for the nursing
profession with respect to:
A) providing opportunities to serve on important government policy-making boards.
B) credentialing and improving nurses' status.
C) strengthening nurses' bargaining power.
D) supporting better avenues for advanced degrees.
5. Consumers of research take which action?
A) Design studies
B) Undertake studies
C) Produce research
D) Read research
______________________________________________________________________________________________
1|Page
,______________________________________________________________________________________________
Test Bank - Polit and Beck Canadian Essentials of Nursing Research, 4th Edition (Woo, 2019)
6. Which activity occurs in a journal club?
A) Development of an idea for a journal article
B) Presentation by a research article's author about the central idea of the article
C) Testing of participants on their comprehension of selected journal articles
D) Discussion of a research article regarding its merits and relevance to practice
7. Which statement is true?
A) In the early 1900s, most nursing research focused on education, not nursing
practice.
B) Clinical nursing research has made steady progress since the work of Florence
Nightingale.
C) Several nursing research journals began publication in the late 1800s.
D) The National Institute of Nursing Research was established in the United States in
1943.
8. In the United States, which is a major source of funding for nursing research?
A) NINR
B) Magnet Recognition Program
C) Journal clubs
D) Sigma Theta Tau
9. Which is a likely trend for the future of nursing research?
A) Improving the methods for conducting research
B) Improving nurses' attitudes toward evidence-based practice
C) Enhancing the focus on the clinical significance of research findings
D) Enhancing nursing students' interest in conducting their own research
10. Which is a primary source for answering clinical questions for evidence-based nursing?
A) Input from an authority
B) Intuition
C) Disciplined research
D) Nurses' clinical experience
11. What is a paradigm?
A) An assumption about the nature of the world
B) An antecedent cause of reality
C) A set of procedures for studying the world
D) A worldview, a general perspective
______________________________________________________________________________________________
2|Page
,______________________________________________________________________________________________
Test Bank - Polit and Beck Canadian Essentials of Nursing Research, 4th Edition (Woo, 2019)
12. Which is a fundamental assumption of the positivist paradigm?
A) Reality is “out there” to be objectively studied, known, and understood.
B) Phenomena do not necessarily have an antecedent cause.
C) Reality is not orderly, but it is haphazard.
D) Reality is not a fixed entity.
13. Which is a fundamental assumption in the constructivist paradigm?
A) A fixed reality exists in nature for humans to understand.
B) The nature of reality has changed over time.
C) Reality is multiply constructed and multiply interpreted by humans.
D) Phenomena are not haphazard and result from prior causes.
14. The scientific method is associated with which paradigm?
A) The positivist paradigm
B) The constructivist paradigm
C) The naturalistic paradigm
D) The empirical paradigm
15. Which attribute is a characteristic of the traditional scientific method?
A) A flexible, emergent design
B) Emphasis on a holistic view of a phenomenon
C) Inductive reasoning
D) Systematic measurement of natural phenomena
16. What is empirical evidence?
A) Evidence derived from inductive reasoning
B) Evidence derived from deductive reasoning
C) Evidence rooted in the real world, gathered through the human senses
D) Evidence based on custom or on an expert/authority
17. Which adjective best describes the scientific method?
A) Holistic
B) Systematic
C) Infallible
D) Flexible
______________________________________________________________________________________________
3|Page
,______________________________________________________________________________________________
Test Bank - Polit and Beck Canadian Essentials of Nursing Research, 4th Edition (Woo, 2019)
18. What limits the capacity of the scientific method to answer questions about human
experiences and health outcomes?
A) The difficulty of accurately measuring complex human characteristics
B) The shortage of well-trained researchers
C) The scarcity of ideas on what to study
D) The shortage of theories about human behaviour
19. A researcher is investigating the effect of bed angle of hospitalized patients (15°, 30°,
45°) on the patients' heart rate. This is an example of what type of study?
A) A qualitative study
B) A quantitative study
C) A constructivist inquiry
D) The type of study would depend on the researcher's preference.
20. A persistent criticism of the scientific method by those who espouse the constructivist
paradigm is that it is:
A) deductive.
B) laborious.
C) empirical.
D) reductionist.
21. Which is true about qualitative research?
A) It involves deductive processes.
B) It attempts to have tight control over the research context.
C) It involves the gathering of narrative, subjective materials.
D) It focuses on the collection of numeric information.
22. Which is a potential limitation of qualitative research?
A) Qualitative research typically involves a small number of people, so the
generalizability of findings can be problematic.
B) Qualitative researchers ask questions that tend to have limited significance in
nursing.
C) Qualitative research is overly reductionist and tends to remove concepts from
real-world contexts.
D) The quality of qualitative research is undermined because of difficulties in
measuring phenomena.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
4|Page
,______________________________________________________________________________________________
Test Bank - Polit and Beck Canadian Essentials of Nursing Research, 4th Edition (Woo, 2019)
23. Which research topic would most likely be the focus in a qualitative study?
A) Outcomes of patients admitted during the day versus the night to a hospital
system's trauma department
B) Trends in hospitalizations of patients with antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis
C) Risk factors associated with serious complications with abdominal surgery
D) Mental health experiences of military veterans living with chronic illness
24. Although the positivist and constructivist paradigms differ in many ways, the two
paradigms have which feature in common?
A) Both rely on the cooperation of human beings to participate in a study.
B) Both have as a major goal the identification of the causes of phenomena.
C) Both involve the application of the scientific method.
D) In both, generalizability is a key objective.
25. Which is a descriptive question that a qualitative researcher might ask?
A) How often do parents of a dying child express grief to others?
B) What is the nature of grief among parents of a dying child?
C) How intense is the grief of parents of a dying child?
D) Over how long a period do parents grieve for a dying child?
26. Which research question is an example of a descriptive question for a quantitative
study?
A) What is it like to experience sudden confusion?
B) Does postpartum depression predict toddlers' temperaments?
C) What is the experience of loneliness like among caregivers of patients with
Alzheimer's disease?
D) What is the prevalence of elevated salivary cortisol in adolescents?
27. Which research questions would be considered cause-probing?
A) What is the prevalence of vaping (using e-cigarettes) among college students?
B) Are students who use e-cigarettes at higher risk of respiratory infections than
students who do not?
C) What are the characteristics of students who vape (use e-cigarettes)?
D) What is the process by which students initiate using e-cigarettes?
______________________________________________________________________________________________
5|Page
,______________________________________________________________________________________________
Test Bank - Polit and Beck Canadian Essentials of Nursing Research, 4th Edition (Woo, 2019)
28. A nurse researcher is studying the effect of a health promotion intervention for inner
city adolescents on daily amount of physical activity. In terms of purposes linked to
EBP, this study has which purpose?
A) Treatment/therapy
B) Diagnosis/assessment
C) Prognosis
D) Meaning and processes
29. A nurse researcher is studying the consequences of having a sex-mismatched heart,
compared to having a sex-matched heart, among heart transplant recipients. In terms of
purposes linked to EBP, this study has which purpose?
A) Treatment/therapy
B) Diagnosis/assessment
C) Prognosis
D) Meaning and processes
30. A nurse researcher has developed and tested a method to evaluate pain in nonverbal
palliative care patients. In terms of purposes linked to EBP, this study had which
purpose?
A) Treatment/therapy
B) Diagnosis/assessment
C) Prognosis
D) Etiology/cause/harm
31. A nurse researcher is studying what it is like for children to be fearful when they
undergo routine immunizations and how they cope with their fears. In terms of purposes
linked to EBP, this study has which purpose?
A) Treatment/therapy
B) Diagnosis/assessment
C) Prognosis
D) Meaning and processes
______________________________________________________________________________________________
6|Page
,______________________________________________________________________________________________
Test Bank - Polit and Beck Canadian Essentials of Nursing Research, 4th Edition (Woo, 2019)
Answer Key
1. C
2. B
3. B
4. B
5. D
6. D
7. A
8. A
9. C
10. C
11. D
12. A
13. C
14. A
15. D
16. C
17. B
18. A
19. B
20. D
21. C
22. A
23. D
24. A
25. B
26. D
27. B
28. A
29. C
30. B
31. D
______________________________________________________________________________________________
7|Page
, ______________________________________________________________________________________________
Test Bank - Polit and Beck Canadian Essentials of Nursing Research, 4th Edition (Woo, 2019)
Chapter 2. Fundamentals of Evidence-Based Nursing Practice
1. Most definitions of evidence-based practice (EBP) call for the integration of best
research evidence with:
A) patient preferences and values.
B) well-worded clinical questions.
C) systematic reviews.
D) rankings on the evidence hierarchy.
2. Research utilization is a process that begins with which event?
A) A clinical problem that needs to be solved
B) A problem-focused trigger
C) A finding from existing research
D) A well-worded clinical question
3. The best-known early research utilization (RU) project sought to bridge the gap between
research and nursing practice. Which is the name of that well-known project?
A) Cochrane Collaboration
B) Stetler Model of Research Utilization
C) Conduct and Utilization of Research in Nursing (CURN) Project
D) Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (PARiHS)
4. Which statement is true?
A) The learning strategy called evidence-based medicine was initiated in the United
States by an epidemiologist.
B) The Cochrane Collaboration, with centres around the world, is involved in
preparing and disseminating systematic reviews.
C) Research utilization (RU) currently is a more prominent concept than
evidence-based practice (EBP).
D) The Michigan Nurses' Association launched one of the first evidence-based
practice projects, which focused on the preparation of systematic reviews.
5. Which argument is used by advocates of EBP?
A) EBP provides an excellent basis for lobbying for health research funding.
B) EBP offers a good framework for self-directed lifelong learning.
C) EBP is universally embraced within the health care community.
D) EBP promotes the elimination of health disparities.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
8|Page
