NURSING 4410A Honours Nursing Research Project
Question
Assignment – Research Proposal
Problem statement: appropriate use must be made of aims and objectives, questions or hypothesis
Research design: broad introduction to the design chosen and justification for same. Design explained, discussed and evaluated
Data collection: interview schedule, questionnaires, observation methods etc, explained. Validity/reliability/ credibility/trustworthiness discussed
Sampling: sample type described, sampling size, framework and access explained
Data analysis: Qualitative data analysis or statistics to be used explained.
Ethical principles and consideration: Discussed.
Answer
Discussion
Critical Discussion of the Findings
Students studying nursing in Ireland experiences a number of stress related factors (Shen, 2009). Nursing students across the globe has been found to experience academic related stress factors, which impacts their psychological and physical situation. Exploration of international education culture present across a small and limited domain and help arrive at factors that lead to stress. It can also allow reflecting upon stress mitigating roles through exploration of various literature searches along with thematic descriptive analysis. Most studies reflect that stress is generally higher during the initial years and generally reduces with passage of time. Such literatures have been consistent with findings as well. Analysis of such stress factors have been found to have several implications on disrupting work-life balance. Moreover, the study was conducted in order to arrive at the factors that led to stress in student’s life. Thematic analysis and descriptive results of the study indicate several findings for the study. The most important discussion pertains to not arriving at stress causing factors but devising stress mitigating strategies. The current discussion diagnosis stress causing factors along with several mitigating strategies, which can effectively help to reduce stress.
Stress Inducing Factors
Ireland provides a suitable place where international students often take up multiple numbers of courses. Nursing provides various opportunities for international students with presence of job prospects. Various international students hence take up nursing courses in Ireland however, end up facing a number of academic stress related factors. Such stressors often cause underperformance in students in academic as well as their personal lives. Analysis of all the relevant stressors indicates that levels of stress experienced amongst international students were much greater compared to students from Ireland. Stress factor analysis amongst international students revealed that they found it difficult to bridge the cultural gap. Most international students found immense cultural gap in dressing, taste of food, communication styles to be different, assignments, study and so on (Folkman, 2010). Other stressors amongst international students were found to be financial stress. With most students arriving from fewer developing countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh which has contrasting culture as compared to Ireland, they are bound to feel stressed. Apart from cultural gap and lingual challenges, they feel multiple types of other stressors as well from being unable to balance their work and life. They receive substantially less aid from the University, which causes them to feel more helpless. They resort to a number of steps such that they are able to cope with the pressure and maintain performance levels. Specific stressors have been found to have specific stress mitigating strategies. This analysis is conducted purely on basis of student’s interview answers. The interviewer had specifically been able to design questionnaire on the basis that she obtains specific answers to questions. This lead to understanding and developing a clear representation of ways adopted by international students. Therefore, concluding from this discussion it can be said that students experience varied types of stressors including academic and livelihood based stressors.
Stress Mitigating Strategies
The several stressors identified with students had some associated mitigating factors as well. Students had adopted stress mitigating strategies in order to deal with levels of stress. This concludes the most effective part of the analysis (Karaiskos, Mavragani, Makaroni, Zinzaras, Voulgarelis, Rabavilas & Moutsopoulos, 2009). While some students adopted religious shelter, some other selected part time jobs to overcome their levels of stress and others made friends effectively. All these stress mitigating roles had enabled the students to effectively deal with levels of stress that they experienced. Most stress mitigating factors was connected with initiatives undertaken by students rather than any help extended by the University. Creation of University post such as counsellors who can deal with only students of separate departments such as Nursing can enable help strategies for reducing stress factors amongst students considerably. It would also provide students with motivational factors to develop engagement with the University. Meaning the University provided little assistant to students for enabling them to cope with their stress levels. The levels of stress further was seen to decrease considerably with passage of time (Brougham, Zail, Mendoza & Miller, 2009). As gradually time passed students interviewed was seen to experience lower stress levels. With passage of time it was not clear that whether stress mitigating factors were responsible for decrease in stress. However, students were seen to be able to better cope with stress causing factors. They had developed understand ding and appropriate skills to be able to deal with stress causing factors to be able to overcome them.
Implications of the Findings
The implications from this research are tremendous in nature. International students experiencing levels of stress can adopt the prescribed stress mitigating roles or strategies such that they are able to overcome their situation prevalent (Steinhardt & Dolbier, 2008). Most importantly this research is conducted in a specific country with specific student, which can help students in the area. The research domain can be enhanced to include other types of students undertaking other courses in the area as well.
Relevant Education and Policy
Education policy in Ireland for International students needs revision. Universities need to devise policies that enable international students with appropriate counselling methods. Such counselling has to be aimed at stress dealing strategies extensively such that students are able to mitigate stress.
Conclusion
Deriving conclusion from the study, it can be said that international students experience considerable amounts of stress, which they need to deal with themselves. Though there has been a number of studies aimed at diagnosing stress related factors yet there are no strategies devised to deal with them. Universities need to undertake strategies for helping students overcome their levels of stress.
Scope of Further Research
There remains scope of extensive research to be developed from this study. An intervention to arrive at multiple strategies that can help students deal with their levels of stress has to be diagnosed. The current study is based upon qualitative analysis of data excluding scope of quantitative analysis entirely. A quantitative review of various stress causing factors connecting them to stress mitigating roles can yield valuable outcomes. Through combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques, the study can arrive at conclusive procedures to define stress mitigating strategies, which can be actually undertaken in order to deal with particular stress causing factors. Then University could utilize such specific factors for the purpose of mitigating levels of stress experienced by students. Moreover, the scope of the research can be expanded in the future to incorporate more number of students across courses. This further research can depict the idea of stress experienced by students in a better manner.
Reference Lists
Brougham, R.R., Zail, C.M., Mendoza, C.M. and Miller, J.R., 2009. Stress, sex differences, and coping strategies among college students. Current psychology, 28(2), pp.85-97.
Folkman, S., 2010. Stress, coping, and hope. Psycho?oncology, 19(9), pp.901-908.
Karaiskos, D., Mavragani, C.P., Makaroni, S., Zinzaras, E., Voulgarelis, M., Rabavilas, A. and Moutsopoulos, H.M., 2009. Stress, coping strategies and social support in patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome prior to disease onset: a retrospective case–control study. Annals of the rheumatic diseases, 68(1), pp.40-46.
Shen, Y.E., 2009. Relationships between self?efficacy, social support and stress coping strategies in Chinese primary and secondary school teachers. Stress and Health: Journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 25(2), pp.129-138.
Steinhardt, M. and Dolbier, C., 2008. Evaluation of a resilience intervention to enhance coping strategies and protective factors and decrease symptomatology. Journal of American college health, 56(4), pp.445-453.
Use the following coupon code :
SAVE10