COMMUNICATION AND UTILIZATION OF RESEARCH

 Introduction
 A research project cannot be considered complete until its results are effectively communicated to its
users and consumers.
 Communication of the research findings is one of the essential and final steps of the research process.
 Communication of the research findings is carried out through the dissemination of the empirical
research evidences generated through research studies.
 The dissemination of the research findings is achieved through either written or oral means.
 In written means of communication, researcher writes a detailed description of the whole research
process which may be done in the form of theses, dissertations, research articles etc. while oral
communication of the research findings is achieved through the presentation of the final results and
effects of the research process to a group of people in a professional scientific conference through either
oral scientific paper or through poster presentation.
 Effective communication of the research report helps in the following ways:
i. Promotion of learning of new knowledge among professionals.
ii. Expansion of the base for evidence based practices.
iii. Improving the health care outcomes or client care outcomes by refining the existing body
of professional knowledge.

 Criteria for Communicating the Research

Researcher has to follow some criteria which are as follows:

1. Selecting proper channel for communicating: The researcher has to select suitable and appropriate
channel to disseminate his or her research findings, such as student related outlets like theses and
dissertations. Professional academicians generally need publication of research articles in
professional journals, books or oral research presentations in conference through papers or slides.
2. Knowing the consumers: Researchers must know in advance to whom they want to communicate
their research findings, such as nursing research findings to clinical bedside nurses, nurse
educators, nurse administrators, health care professionals or even the general public. This will help
in choosing the right method, mode and content of research to be communicated.
3. Developing an effective plan for writing a research report: A plan for writing a research includes
the following aspects:
 Decide on authorship: researchers have to decide among themselves as to who will be the
leading author and the contributing authors. The international community of medical
journal editors (ICMJE) advices that authorships credits should be given only to who have
made substantial contribution to the conceptual designs of the study that analyse and
interpretation, drafting or reviewing the manuscript, and approving the final version of the
manuscript.
 Deciding about the content: researchers also have to decide how many papers are required
to communicate the findings of the research effectively, as sometimes researchers collect
a huge amount of data that can not be communicated in a single paper.
 Preparing outline of the report: It is important that if there are multiple authors of a report,
each one has responsibility for different sections of manuscript. This can be incorporated
into a timeline that sets goals for completing the manuscript.
  Careful selection of a journal for publication of a report: In selecting a journal for
publication, some important factors must be kept in mind, such as the journal’s goal,
audience, its prestige, acceptance and frequency of publication.
 Careful review of the author’s manuscript guidelines: Researchers need to be careful to
review the journal instructions to authors because each journal has its own guidelines for
submission of the manuscript.

 Methods of Communication of Research

Research findings are disseminated through following reports:

a) Written reports: it is considered as the best method for disseminating research findings because
this communication medium has the potential to reach to the largest percentage of consumers. The
growth of nursing profession largely depends on documented evidences for the expansion and
advancement of new professional knowledge. Written reports could either be theses, dissertations,
published scientific articles in journals or periodicals. Publishing a research article in scientific
journals involves authoring a research article in a format suggested for the manuscript and sending
it to an appropriate professional journal for the publication.
b) Oral reports: Another popular and useful method for the dissemination of the knowledge among
the users. The oral reports are generally written and presented in the group of professionals at
conference, which can be either read out or presented through poster or computer slide presentation.
Presenting research results at a conference has an advantage over publishing a scientific research
article in a professional journal. Oral presentation provides opportunity to present the recent finding
almost immediately, while publishing a research article in journal may take time. Audience get an
opportunity to interact with the researchers and may clarify their doubts if any. There is a lack of
permanent records of the oral reports. Oral reports must be supplemented with the availability of
the written reports of the oral presentation in advance in the form of conference abstract publication.
Oral reports presented in the professional conferences, where researcher is given about 15-30
minutes to present finding with few minutes for discussion. Before the conference, authors are
invited to submit the research abstract in a given format. The poster and multimedia presentation
in conference are recent trend, where researchers present brief research findings on posters or
slides, which are displayed in open halls during conference.
c) Poster presentation: posters sessions make it possible for a huge number of researcher to present
their findings at conferences. The poster is a visual graphic presentation of study results that can
be examined by an audience with or without interaction with the investigator. A poster follows the
abstract, outline, purpose of the research project, methods, results and conclusions. The results
section of the posters should make use of tables, graphs and visual illustrations. Ideally, the poster
should be visually interesting enough to attract an interested audience. It should be colourful,
clearly laid out and should not be too busy with much of text. The information from purpose to
implications should be presented from left to right on the poster. Some of the important suggestions
for successful poster presentation are:
 The choice of fonts, font size and layout are essential in attracting an audience. Coleagues
can be asked to critique the poster as if they are walking through the poster session.
 Microsoft Power Point and lamenated poster paper are the best tools and materials for
creating a poster. Suggested formats for laying out material can also be downloaded from
numerous sites and used as a guide.
 During the poster session time, the author should be available, standing or sitting near the
poster, to explain the findings and answer the questions for the interested audience.
COMPOSITE SCALES/ATTITUDE SCALES
A scale is a device designed to assign a numeric score to people to place them on a continuum with respect to attributes
being measured, like a scale for measuring attitude, or weight, or so on.
These rating scales can also be used to assess the attitudes or feelings of self-concept. The expressions of the any point
of view are accounted as measurements towards any item, object, or concept; they show the person's positive or
negative attitude towards any concept. Measuring the score between two opposite concepts us about the attitude,
feeling, and perception of a person or study subject towards the directions of positive or negative attitude in a scale.
Visual scales illustrate visual depiction of any culture; photographs are given to get the feelings, beliefs, opinions about
contrast, texture, colour, and elements.
Composite scales are socio-psychologic measurements directed towards quantifying the qualitative attributes, such as
feelings, attitude, self-concept, perceptions etc.

Likert Scale
Likert scale was named after a psychologist Rensis Likert, who developed it in 1932 as a psychologic
concept measurement scale. Likert scale is one of the most commonly used scal ing techniques. It was
developed to measure the attitudes, values, and feelings of people. Primarily original version of this scale was
developed with five-point scale (strongly agree, agree, uncertain, disagree, and strongly disagree) containing the mixture
of positive and negative declarative statements regarding measuring Variables. However, in recent times, one
can even observe the Likert scale with four points (strongly agree, moderately agree, disagree, and uncertain) to seven
points (very strongly agree, strongly agree, agree, uncertain, disagree, strongly disagree, and very strongly disagree) scaling
categories.

Definitions
Likert scale is a composite measurement scale used to measure attitude, values, and feelings of
the people that involve summation of scores on the set of positive and negative declarative statements regarding
measuring variables to which respondents are asked to indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement.

Uses of Likert Scale

 Basically, it is used to measure the attitudes, values, and feelings of the people about specific concepts, such as
situations, people, places, objects, programmes, practices, policies, and so on.
 This scale is used to have quantified measurement of the qualitative attributes ofpeople such as feelings, values,
and attitudes. ,
 It may also be used to assess the opinions of the respondents about aparticular abstract concept.
 It collects the opinions of people with various attitudes, emotions, and feelings towards a particular concept.
Characteristics of Likert Scale
The main characteristics of the Likert scale are as follows:
 Psychologic measurement tool: Likert scale is basically a psychologic measurement tool to
assess the attitudes, values, and feelings of the people about a specific concept.
 Illustrative in nature: This scale is generally illustrative in nature, where each statement in
a scale is stated in an explicitly illustrative way so that a person can make a clear judgement about
the degree of agreement or disagreement with the particular item on the scale.
 Neutral statements: This must contain neutral statements without incorporation of any bias
of the researcher.
 Bipolar scaling method: This is composed of alternative positive and negative declarative
statements so that respondent's casual response bias can be eliminated. Here positive
statement gets high score with agreement and negative statements gets high score with
disagreement with statement.
 Measurement of the specific number of scaling categories: This scale was originally devel-
oped with five scaling categories; but later scales even developed with four, six, and seven
scaling categories.

Scoring of the Likert Scale

Scoring of the Likert scale is done on the basis of type of statement and level of respondents'
agreement with statement. For a positive statement, respondents get higher score if there is
agreement with statement. However, in case of negative statement, respondent gets higher score
if there is a disagreement with statement or vice versa.

Advantages of Likert Scale

 It is relatively easy to construct this scale.
 Likert scale is considered as more reliable and valid tool to measure the psychosocial
variables.
 It is easy to administer, since respondents only have to tick in spaces provided against
of each statement.
 It is less time-consuming during construction and administration.
Disadvantages of likert scale
 In Likert scale, respondents may feel forced to answer the questions against all preplanned
items and their categories.

 Feelings of the respondents may not be fully assessed due to researcher's preplanned
statements and categories.
 Difficulty in justifying the selection of the number of categories and numerical assignment
to these categories.
 Casual approach of respondent in these scales may provide misleading data.
Semantic Differential Scale
Semantic differential scale is most effective and most widely used technique nowadays. In
1967, Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum introduced this method for the first time in their book,
The Measurement of Meaning. Although the original purpose of the scale was not necessarily to
measure the assessment of attitude, the procedure was well adopted for attitude assessment.
People's attitudes regarding objects, stimulus words, and concepts are measured by se-
mantic differential questions. This comprises a series of differential adjective pairs, such as
beneficial-harmful, good-bad, etc., which are mentioned on the two ends of a bipolar scale.
With different cultures, age groups, and languages, many studies have indicated that se-
mantic differential questions can work efficaciously. As these questions are very easy to
structure and administer and as these render reliable quantitative data and reasonably valid,
hence these questions are considered popular.

Definition

Semantic differential scale is a type of rating scale designed to measure the connotative
meaning of objects, events, and concepts. These connotations are used to derive the
respondents' attitude towards the objects, events, and concepts.

Usages of Semantic Differential Scale

Semantic differential scale is most commonly used in:

 Patient satisfaction survey

 Customer satisfaction survey
 Employee survey
 Marketing survey
 Operational research
 personality measurements
 Clinical psychology
 Semantic Differential Scale

 The bipolar adjective pairs can he used for a wide variety of subjects.
 The adjective pairs are selected according to the objectives of the survey.
 The adjective pairs can be grouped into three large categories, and each survey question
usually includes a few points from each category. These categories are evaluation, potency,
and activity.
Advantages of Semantic Differential Scale
 A convenient method to assess the beliefs, attitudes, and values in quantitative form.
 Easy to administer.
 Provides reasonable valid and reliable quantitative data.
Disadvantages of Semantic Differential Scale
 It is difficult to select the relevant concepts, which are appropriate for any
given investigation.
 It is time-consuming to find the appropriate adjective pairs.

VISUAL ANALOGOUS SCALE

It is a widely used psychomotor response scale, which is a measurement instrument for subjective
characteristics or attitudes that cannot be directly measured. This has 10 cm lines and the ends mark
semantic opposites (e.g. alert—drowsy).
Visual analogous scale (VAS) is used to measure the intensity of certain sensations and
feelings, such as pain, discomfort, anxiety, alertness, quality of sleep, severity of clinical
symptoms, functional ability, and attitude towards environmental conditions.

Definitions
Visual analogous scale is a tool that is used to assist a person in rating the intensity of
certain feelings and sensations (e.g. pain).
The VAS is a self-report measure consisting simply of a 10 cm (100 mm) line with a
statement at each end representing one extreme of the dimension being measured.
The VAS is a bipolar scale used to determine the degree of stimuli a patient experiences. One
side of the scale expresses the absence of stimuli, while the other expresses the presence of stimuli.
Visual analogous scale is a 100 mm horizontal or vertical line with right angle stop at either
ends. Between these two extreme ends (e.g. best and worst, no pain and severe pain, alert and
drowsy), respondent provides his response for particular phenomenon measured, which is later
measured by using a ruler from left end.
For example, a straight line with no pain at one end and the worst pain imaginable at the other end
indicates the visual analogue scale for pain. As per the amount of pain he/she feels, a patient
usually marks a point on the line that matches with his/her feelings.

No pain Worst pain ever

Uses of Visual Analogous Scale

 To measure the level of pain, anxiety, mood.

 To measure the alertness, quality of sleep, severity of clinical symptoms, functional ability, and
attitude towards environmental conditions.
 To choose the right dose of medicine for the treatment of the disease

 For rating soft variables, such as skills, confidence, quality of team work.

Advantages of VAS

 It is a reliable and valid tool to measure the intensity of certain sensations and feelings.
 The quantitative assessment is a highly subjective phenomenon possible by this scale.
 This scale is of most value when looking at changes within individual.
s

 This scale cannot be used for comparing results across a group of individuals at the same time.
 While measuring pain, the scale does not provide the patient a chance to document an
increase in pain. Thus, it creates a treatment bias.
 In measuring pain or such sensations, the reliability of this scale is low owing to the pa-
tient's need to recall him/her initial pain severity.

FIGURE 9.3 Example of a horizontal visual analogous scale