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
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
Page 1
, 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
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.
Page 2
, 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
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
Page 3
, 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.
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
Page 4
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
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
Page 1
, 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
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.
Page 2
, 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
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
Page 3
, 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.
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
Page 4
