Nursing Salary Inequity for Florida RN Other States and Gender

¶ … Nursing Salary Inequity for Florida RN, other states and gender / I choose Quantitative Research.

Explain your choice of subjects for your research (the sample).

Identify how you will recruit the participants for your research proposal.

Include a minimum of two scholarly references.

Qualitative research differs from quantitative in that the second uses statistics and is a data-based study testing the validity and reliability of a hypothesis. It is used to formulate an employ mathematical models, theories and/or hypotheses regarding the subject. The researcher asks a specific narrow question and collects statistical data to answer it. He or she is then hoping to use that data and apply it to similar instances. Qualitative studies, on the other hand, collect more information on a certain topic rather than testing the validity of the hypothesis. It asks broad questions and interviews participants collecting word data rather than quantitative results. Qualitative studies are, therefore, beneficial for collecting information about a particular subject, particularly a case history or observation, whilst quantitative is used to test one's assumptions.

My research question intends to investigate Nursing Salary Inequity for Florida Register Nurse ((RN) as compared to other states and gender. For this study, I will, therefore, employ a quantitative method since my intention is to ask a specific question (namely to investigate the average salary paid to nurses in Florida), and to then contrast the received data to the salary paid to RNs in other American states.

Secondly, I will use a quantitative approach since we need hard data to treat this study. Only then can questions of wage increase, if existent, be addressed. A qualitative study provides inferences and possibilities but no conclusive statistical data; many consider it less reliable than the quantitative, mathematical, 'hard' results. The quantitative approach is best used for data that one wants to build on. It is for this reason, too, that a quantitative methodology will be used. Researchers tending towards qualitative research contend that qualitative methodology constitutes evidence too. I would, however, prefer the 'hardest' most scientific kind of evidence possible and, therefore, I am inclined to quantitative research.

The sample will be RNs working in at least 22 representative medical institutions in Florida. I will choose major institutions since these represent the average nurse working in Florida. I will also be particular in choosing a spectrum of institutions (such as a hospital, a hospice, and a nursing home) so that the study gathers nurses who work in a diversity of settings. I have selected 22 based on similar other studies conducted on the subject, such as the qualitative sample conducted by Campbell et al. (2008). The sample will be carefully matched too so nurses will have to have certain characteristics. These include years of experience (possibly at least two years), and type of work, as well as hours on job, skills and expertise.

I will recruit the participants by randomly selecting 22 institutions from published registers or telephone directories that fill the criteria of sought-for centers. I will send an invitation letter to these institutions and will approach them for permission to conduct the research, before approaching the nurses with my questions.