Research Design
Restatement of Week 1 Research Question and Research Approach
The topic of study in the research is Middle School Children Diagnosed with Childhood Obesity. The PICOT question for the study is: Among middle school children (P), how will a nurse-led “shopping, cooking, eating and exercise” (I), compared to inaction (C), affect school lunch choices, self-concept, and weight loss in 6 weeks of implementation (T). The most appropriate research approach for the study is quantitative because the approach will provide objective and quantifiable data to determine the effect of the program on the dependent variables (school lunch choices, self-concept, and weight loss). The data will be useful to test the hypothesis that the program will improve obesity outcomes within the school by operating on the variables. However, the actual result will be obtained from the study.
Summary of Steps
The researcher will follow the following steps to implement the quantitative design:
- Establish the hypothesis to be tested through data collection.
- Determine the research design to apply for data collection and testing of hypothesis (an experimental design in this case).
- Operationalize concepts; determine the measures of the concepts that will be investigated in the study.
- Select the setting or site to implement the experimental study and collect data.
- Select the subjects or participants through sampling.
- Implement the experimental design and collect data using appropriate tools, such as a questionnaire.
- Analyze the data quantitatively to report findings and make conclusions.
- Present findings and conclusions.
The Specific Study Design
The study will be an experimental design with participants randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. The design involves the assignment of participants in two groups, usually randomly allocated, to compare outcomes (Barker & Milivojevich, 2016). In the study, the intervention will be a nurse-led “shopping, cooking, eating, and exercise” 6-week program to establish the differences in school lunch choices, self-concept, and weight loss. The control group will include children who will not undertake the program to compare the results and determine its effectiveness. The researcher will collect data from the two groups for comparison. Such an approach is the most effective to test the correlation between variables and compare outcomes for the two groups.
Sampling Method
The researcher will use a random sampling method to assign participants to an intervention and control groups. The participants will be students in middle school. The study will have two groups, an intervention involving a nurse-led “shopping, cooking, eating, and exercise” program to test the efficacy in the prevention of childhood obesity. Another group of students will be randomly assigned to a control group (Barker & Milivojevich, 2016). The participants will not undertake any intervention in the control group. Data will be collected quantitively after implementation to test the level of learning among students regarding the steps to prevent childhood obesity. The data will be analyzed and compared for the two groups. It is expected that the intervention group will have a higher level of knowledge compared to the control group.
Quantitative Approach to Analyze
Since the data collected from the two groups will be numerical, a statistical procedure will be employed in the analysis. The data will be analyzed statistically using SPSS and presented in graphs and charts to ease comparison (Albers, 2017). Overall, the researcher will write a report with relevant findings, discussions, and conclusions.
