Research

Focused Programs of Research

"I~tE TERM "PROGRAM OF RESEARCH" was

introduced during one of the research group discussions at the 1985 AACN spring semiannual meeting. It soon be- came clear that each person defined the phrase differently.

A program of research may be thought of as a longitudinal, cross-seational, or

combination program. In the longitudinal program, a researcher or a team of researchers makes a long-term commitment to in- quiry in a selected area of nursing. Research that requires tool development is a good example of research requiring a long- term commitment. Searching the literature for suggestions for measurement, developing a tool, administering it in different populations, factor analysis, further refinement, and test-retest for reliability are all part of the development of a tool. Almost any good research raises further questions, and committed re- searchers may spend years or a lifetime pursuing questions raised by their previous research.

Program grants funded by the Division of Nursing seem more cross-sectional, since the program requires three or more sepa- rate research proposals focused on the same significant prob- lem or theoretical framework. Most nursing research involves many variables, which are often difficult to control. For instance, in studying the concept of stress as a risk factor in illness, re- searchers might wish to investigate kinds ofstressors, total stress experienced in a given period, the characteristics of the subject experiencing the stress (age, sex, self-concept), and the social supports and coping strategies of the subject. This quickly be- comes very complex, but different researchers or teams of re- searchers can focus on interrelated questions. One team might concentrate on the stress associated with major accidents or losses for which the subjects feel responsible, whereas another might investigate stress over which subjects believe they had no con- trol. Different teams might focus on different age groups or be interested in those with strong social supports versus those with few social supports. Thus new knowledge that would take a sin- gle investigator several years to produce might be produced in a fairly short time by several studies organized around an im- portant area of investigation.

A combination program may arise when a longitudinal re- search program team joins forces with other researchers or teams of researchers investigating related questions, or when a cross- sectional program is completed and some investigators continue with research related to the program.

Thus we define "program of research" as a focused, long-term commitment to increasing research skills in a continuous man- ner, pursuing a truly significant problem further and further, applying procedures for conducting the inquiry, refining research methods, and modifying ways for making critical measurements of a variety of populations, conditions, or situations. A program

of research reflects attention to the solution of important aspects of a problem and moving on to the next aspect of that impor- tant problem, involving a kind of intellectual breadth. In a col- lege of nursing in which programs of research are in place, there is healthy tension among the varied activities and goals. There are ways to measure college vigor by the achievements of its in- dividual members, but each program of research draws its strength from a complex web of communal values and collec- tive endeavors.

Graduate nursing education lies at the heart of this web. It constitutes the means by which the nursing academic commu- nity perpetuates its existence, maintains its vitality, and defines its future through the education of new generations of nurse teachers, scholars, and researchers. It provides a mechanism by which fundamental nursing knowledge, intellectual creativity, and nursing resources can be preserved and placed at the ser- vice of society at large. It offers a context in which individuals can extend their powers of understanding, further their crea- tive abilities, and enhance their capacities to pursue challeng- ing nursing careers and intellectually rigorous and satisfying goals.

It is through involvement in faculty research programs that graduate students, as well as undergraduate students, have the opportunity to experience the nature of the intellectual enter- prise; to get a critical grasp of the way it has been elaborated, the assumptions on which it rests, and the rules by which it pro- ceeds; and to form a self-conscious understanding of the nature of the activity itself. Concomitant with this understanding is a blurring of the line between creation of knowledge and its transmission, since both teacher and student are active par- ticipants in the practice of inquiry and investigation and the learning of nursing research as process and content.

Research programs are not for everyone. Nor do programs of research alone constitute the strength and stature of a college. Nor does the proposal that a research-active cadre of faculty members have programs of research imply restrictions on indi- vidual faculty research and research interests. Nonetheless, the idea of targeted programs of research connotes a coming of age, a standard by which we must measure ourselves and our aspirations.

GERAH)ENE FELTON, EDD, RN, FAAN Professor and Dean College of Nursing University of Iowa lowa City, lowa

ROS,A~. YEAWORTH, PHD, RN Dean, College of Nursing University of Nebraska Omaha, Nebraska

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