Course Details

1. Explain the concepts, principles and methods of scientific process and nursing research, the concepts and peocedures for evaluating and testing research and null hypotheses, the research process of measuring, the scales of measurement, the importance of formulating a research proposal, the concepts of reliability and validity in quantitative research, the concepts and procedures in probability and non-probability sampling, the advantages and disadvantages of surveys and interviews in research, the statistical analysis methods and the aims of qualitative research.
2. Explain the sources of nursing knowledge and research problems, the types of hypotheses, the sources and methods of literature searching and review, the referencing systems, the characteristics of experimental and non-experimental research designs, the concepts of target populations and samples in research, of descriptive and inductive statistics, the traditional approaches to qualitative research and the procedures of qualitative data analysis including content analysis
3. Identify the types of variables, structured and unstructured methods of observations and interviews
4. Describe the characteristics, purposes and limits of scientific research, the phases and steps of research process, the different experimental and survey designs, the types of research questions, the steps of literature review, sampling techniques and the characteristics of data collection methods.
5. Employ skills in the development and writing of research problem, research questions, hypotheses and descriptive statistical analysis.
6. Evaluate the characteristics of measuring procedures
7. Organise the searching of nursing literature and conduct literature review.

Scientific Research: Nature, Sources of Knowledge of Nursing Science
Scientific Method: Key Elements and the production of new knowledge, observation, description and measurement.
Specialisation and induction, Assumptions, Theories.
The controlled observation, verification, dependency theory and observation, the validity of induction, paradigms in nursing research.
The research proposal - the research protocol.
Research Organisation: intellectual phase, design phase and planning phase, the empirical phase, the analytical phase, the phase of dissemination.
The exploration of the literature – Literature Review.
The research problem and formulation of research questions.
Variables, research and null hypothesis.
Survey Design: non-experimental, experimental, factorial, longitudinal, cross-sectional designs.
Sampling: Population and the sample, target group, probability and non-probability sampling.
Data Collection: questionnaire – reliability and validity, interview, observation, the pilot study.
Data Analysis
Qualitative Research: content analysis, case study, phenomenology, historical research in nursing, grounded theory.

• A. Sachini-Kardasi, Research Methodology: Applications in the Health Field. Athens: Beta Medical Publisher, 2007

• DF. Polit, CT. Beck, Nursing Research: Principles and Methods (7th ed.) Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2004

The course is delivered to the students by means of lectures, conducted with the help of computer-based presentations. Lecture notes and presentations are available through the web for students to use in combination with the textbooks.