NURS8035 Assessment 4 Latest 2021 January

NURS8035 Foundations of Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing

Assessment 4

Instructions: Analyzing a Health Care Data Set

•             For this assessment, you will determine the relevant statistical tests to apply to the analysis of a data set, and then write a 3–4 page interpretation of the results of your analysis.

This assessment will ask you to select, apply, and interpret the results of a variety of statistical tests on a health care data set. This may include tests you have learned about or applied previously in the course, or the new nonparametic t-Test which is presented in the resources for this assessment. The challenge is using what you have learned to determine the best course of action to complete the interpretative tasks the assessment lays out for you. This attempts to mirror real-world situations where the data or statistical analysis could be approached in a variety of different ways. To decide which statistical test to use for the various dependent variables to be analyzed, one must first know more about the data type (measurement level) within those variables.

Overview

Public health researchers are often involved in collaborating in the design, development, and analysis of community initiatives of varying complexity. While this course alone will not provide sufficient training for you to act as a statistical consultant, it does offer a broad and practice-based analytic foundation that can position you to better understand and more fully contribute to real-world project teams. Building on the basic statistical concepts and analytical techniques of the previous units, this assessment is an opportunity to use your cumulative quantitative-analysis skills to address a broad set of real-world research questions.

Demonstration of Proficiency

By successfully completing this assessment you will address the following scoring guide criteria, which align to the indicated course competencies.

•             Competency 2: Apply appropriate statistical methods using common software tools in the collection and evaluation of health care data.

o             Perform the most appropriate parametric or nonparametric test to answer each question.

                Competency 3: Interpret the results and practical significance of statistical health care data analyses.

o             Assess the assumption of normal distribution prior to analysis.

o             Appropriately interpret the statistical output (such as estimate, p-value, confidence interval, and effect size) resulting from each statistical test.

o             Summarize the clinical implications, significance, and potential limitations of the study data and outcomes.

                Competency 4: Assess the quality of quantitative research methods reported in peer-reviewed health care literature.

o             Describe the practical significance of the results of statistical tests.

                Competency 5: Address assignment purpose in a well-organized text, incorporating appropriate evidence and tone in grammatically sound sentences.

o             Articulate meaning relevant to the main topic, scope, and purpose of the prompt.

o             Apply APA formatting to in-text citations and references.

Instructions

Complete the following for this two-part assessment.

Software

The following statistical analysis software is required to complete your assessments in this course:

                IBM SPSS Statistics Standard or Premium GradPack, version 22 or higher, for PC or Mac.

You have access to the more robust IBM SPSS Statistics Premium GradPack.

Please refer to the Statistical Software page on Campus for general information on SPSS software, including the most recent version made available to Capella learners.

Part 1: Yoga and Stress Study Statistical Tests

6.            Use the Yoga Stress (PSS) Study Data Set [XLSX] to determine the measurement level of data of the dependent or outcome variable (Psychological Stress Score) you are analyzing.

o             Is the data categorical, ordinal, or interval or ratio?

7.            Before performing any statistical tests, you must determine which tests would be most appropriate for your data type.

o             Perform a preevaluation of the data for outliers (all variables) and normal distribution (only dependent variables) as you have done previously.

o             Use How to Choose a Statistical Test [PPTX] as general guidance in helping you to decide which test to use.

o             Use the readings, media, resources, and textbook as guides to perform an analysis of the selected variables.

8.            Perform and interpret an appropriate series of statistical tests (including preanalytical testing for outliers and normal distribution of data) that answer the following research questions:

o             How would you quantitatively describe the study population?

o             Summarize the primary demographic data using descriptive statistics.

o             Is there any association between gender and race in this military study?

o             Perform an appropriate chi-square analysis.

9.            Perform preliminary assessment of the data, then compare pretest to post-test scores.

o             In total population being studied, what was the effect of the yoga intervention on stress?

10.          Provide the SPSS “.sav” output file that shows your programming and results for this assessment.

Part 2: Interpretive Report

11.          Summarize the clinical implications related to the statistical outcomes for each of the questions above.

12.          Describe potential limitations of the study (Part 1, number 3).

Additional Requirements

•             Length: Your paper will be 3–4 typed, double-spaced pages of content plus title and reference pages.

•             Font: Times New Roman, 12 points.

•             APA Format: Your title and reference pages must conform to APA format and style guidelines. See the APA Module for more information. The body of your paper does not need to conform to APA guidelines. Do make sure that it is clear, persuasive, organized, and well written, without grammatical, punctuation, or spelling errors. You also must cite your sources according to APA guidelines.

Refer to the helpful links in Resources as you prepare your assessment.

Please review the assessment scoring guide before completing your submission. The requirements outlined above correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide, so be sure to address each point. In addition, you may want to review the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.

Resources: Nonparametric T-Test

•             Most of your focus in this course thus far has been on health care situations where it is reasonable to assume that the data you are analyzing is normally distributed. What happens if you find yourself in a situation where you cannot make that assumption about the data? This may happen with interval or ratio data if your sample size is small (fewer than 30) or each group is skewed in opposite directions. You also may not be able to assume normal distribution if the data is measured at the ordinal level, which is less precise than interval or ratio data. If you encounter either of these scenarios, you may need to consider using nonparametric tests.

Fortunately, nonparametric tests are very flexible because they are distribution free! So why not use nonparametric tests all the time? The reason has to do with power. Like a powerful microscope that can magnify tiny differences in small objects, the parametric tests can identify significant differences in small increments of data. Like a toy microscope, nonparametric tests are great for examining bigger objects, but they do not work well on small objects.

The following resources will help add additional information, strategies, and tools to your repertoire to help in completing this assessment.

Nonparametric t-Test

•             Heavey, E. (2019). Statistics for nursing: A practical approach (3rd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett. Available in the courseroom via the VitalSource Bookshelf link.

o             Appendix B, “Working With Small Samples.”

                Health Knowledge. (n.d.). Parametric and non-parametric tests for comparing two or more groups. Retrieved from https://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/public-health-textbook/research-methods/1b-statistical-methods/parametric-nonparametric-tests

                Hoskin, T. (n.d.). Parametric and nonparametric: Demistifying the terms [PDF]. Available from https://www.mayo.edu/documents/berd-5-6/doc-20274735

                Nahm, F. S. (2016). Nonparametric statistical tests for the continuous data: The basic concept and the practical use. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4754273/

                Pryjmachuk, S., & Richards, D. A. (2007). Look before you leap and don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Journal of Research in Nursing, 12(1), 43–54.

                Laerd Statistics. (n.d.). Wilcoxon signed-rank test using SPSS statistics. Retrieved from https://statistics.laerd.com/spss-tutorials/wilcoxon-signed-rank-test-using-spss-statistics.php

                Laerd Statistics. (n.d.). Mann-Whitney u test using SPSS statistics. Retrieved from https://statistics.laerd.com/spss-tutorials/mann-whitney-u-test-using-spss-statistics.php

Activity: SPSS Practice: Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon Signed Rank (Nonparametric) Tests

•             SPSS PRACTICE: MANN-WHITNEY AND WILCOXON SIGNED RANK (NONPARAMETRIC) TESTS

Context

The nonparametric tests that you are being asked to perform in this assessment (Mann-Whitney U, the nonparametric equivalent of the independent t-test and the Wilcoxon Test, the nonparametric equivalent of the dependent t-test) are most often used if the interval or ratio data is not normally distributed or if the data being analyzed is at the ordinal (ranked) measurement level.

To best prepare for this assessment, you must understand how to perform and interpret paired t-tests.

Again, like the previous practice activities, you will first complete tasks in SPSS and then answer questions in a formative activity, SPSS Practice: Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon Signed Rank (Nonparametric) Tests, to check your work.

Activity Instructions

For this activity, use the data scenario we described in the Assessment 3 practice activity (the various group comparisons for well-being), but we will pretend that the normal distribution assumption that we tested was violated (this is, test results suggest that the data is not normally distributed).

Perform a nonparametric Mann-Whitney test and a Wilcoxon signed-rank on the appropriate data from the Emotional Well-Being (SF-36) Study [XLSX].

MANN-WHITNEY TEST

Since the Mann-Whitney test is the nonparametric equivalent of the independent t-test you will again utilize the data related to the dietary treatment on males versus females. Perform the Mann-Whitney test on the Well-Being dependent variable in male participants compared to the same scores in female participants.

WILCOXON SIGNED RANK TEST

Since the Wilcoxon Signed Rank is the nonparametric equivalent of the dependent t-test, compare the effects of the Dietary Treatment on the well-being of males at baseline to well-being scores in the same males after treatment, perform a Wilcoxon Signed Rank test for the dependent variable Well-Being.

Save your work on the Emotional Well-Being data set.

Once you have completed the practice tasks, leave SPSS open for reference and answer the questions in the SPSS Practice: Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon Signed Rank (Nonparametric) Tests formative activity to check your work.