NURS3003 Article Critique: Impact of Short-Term Clinical Placement

This report provides a critical analysis of a research article titled "The impact of short term clinical placement in a developing country on nursing students: A qualitative descriptive study." The critique evaluates the article's title, introduction, literature review, sampling, recruitment, data collection, analysis, and ethical considerations. The analysis highlights strengths such as the clear title, appropriate data collection methods, and ethical considerations. Weaknesses include the lack of information on sample size and sampling techniques, and the failure to incorporate triangulation. The critique also discusses the study's adherence to ethical guidelines, including voluntary participation and anonymity, and the use of interviews as a data collection method. The paper concludes with a discussion of the article's overall contribution to the field and recommendations for improvement.

Running head: ARTICLE CRITIQUE 1
Article Critique
Student’s Name:
Institution Affiliation:

ARTICLE CRITIQUE 2
Article Critique
A critique is essential because it gives the reader an understanding of the primary purpose
of the study, the audience, and the creative style. This paper provides a critique of Ulvund and
Elins's (2017) study on the impact of short term clinical placement in a developing country on
nursing students.
Title
The authors settled for an appropriate title. From the article, a reader can understand that
the subject under investigation is the impact of short term clinical placement in a developing
country on nursing students. The title demonstrates that the study will focus on nursing students
based in developing countries (p. 1). The context of the study is short time clinical placement.
The context of research establishes the main idea or an event on discussion as explained in
Cooper (2015). The reader can identify from the title that the methodology for this study is
qualitative and it is descriptive research design.
The strengths identified on the title is that it provides an in-depth explanation of the topic
under investigation. It furthers identifies the group of interest and the environment in which the
study will focus on. The reader does not have to read through the whole research to know which
type of research it is and what research design it will entail. The title provides a summary of
what the study is about, even though the authors have not mentioned about the population of
interest.
Introduction/ background/ literature review
An increase in the immigrant's population all over the globe makes it essential for nurses
to acquire cultural competencies. The authors adopted the Papadopoulos, Tilki, and Taylors

ARTICLE CRITIQUE 3
Model (PTT) (p. 97). The model acknowledges knowledge as a process which contains four
crucial processes.
The ideas in the study are arranged in chronological order. The chronological order in the
study makes it easy for the reader to understand the content of the study. The reader is introduced
in the definition of essential terms to enable easy understanding while reading through the entire
article. The research question is well answered as the author tries to the source for evidence from
quality study articles that are related to the study topic. The references are within the required
period limit, most of them above 2008 and only two sources published in 2002 (p. 99-100).
The gap in knowledge in the study can be described as what the impact of short term
clinical placement in developing countries is. The gap in knowledge refers to what has not been
answered or fully covered by other researchers (Lawler, Alsina & Adams, 2018). Well organized
ideas make it easy for a reader to understand critical points in the research (Zubin & Sutton,
2014). The author also demonstrates to have a better understanding of the research topic by using
quality resources cited in the literature review section (p. 97). However, the researchers have left
out information on the sample size and the study population but included it in the abstract. This
could have been based on using a brief title. It could have been better if all this information could
have been captured in the title to give the reader full information.
Sampling and recruitment
The participants in the study are undergraduate nursing students who are placed for
clinical placement in Ethiopia. The article clearly describes the study settings. The majority of
its citizens were living below the poverty level and illiterate. The study sample was appropriate.
It focused on only students who had completed their international clinical placement in Ethiopia
(p. 98).

ARTICLE CRITIQUE 4
The students selected to be interviewed were only eighteen (p. 98). This can be
considered as strength because it is a smaller number and can be analyzed easily. However, this
sample size does not seem to be adequate and it is also a weakness, keeping in mind that the
study setting is in an environment full of challenges. Additionally, the researchers do not
mention the type of sampling technique used, even though one can deduce from the selection of
the sample that purposeful/bias sampling was used because eighteen Norwegian students that had
participated in internship were the only participants in the study (p. 96). This sampling is
increases bias in research because the researcher decides the type of participants that will be
considered in the study.
Data collection and data analysis
Interview as a data collection method is appropriate for the study because the study group
was small. Interviewing enables a researcher to cover a broad range of topics within a short time
(Paradis, O'Brien & Martimianakis, 2018). The authors entirely depended on data collected from
the interviews; therefore, the research did not incorporate triangulation (p. 97). The data
collection method and recording procedures are appropriate. The author fails to indicate if the
staff mandated to collect data was subjected to training before data collection. Collected data was
relevant because it focused on the opinions and reflections of the students who were placed in
Ethiopia. The research data analysis method was compatible with the data obtained. The study
provided answers to the research question.
The weakness noted in data collection was the failure of the researchers to consider
triangulation. Any researcher needs to involve data triangulation (Simpson, 2015). Triangulation
ensures the information obtained is valid since data is verified by more sources, therefore
eradicating information biasness. The researchers also do not mention about data storage, which

ARTICLE CRITIQUE 5
is essential in protecting the privacy and confidentiality of participants as discussed in Yip, Han,
and Sng (2016).The other weakness is also evidenced in lack of mentioning whether Hawthorne
effect had an impact on this study, considering that the main method of data collection was
through interviews.
Ethics
Participation in the study was voluntary, and the participants had to fill the consent,
which is a crucial aspect of research as discussed in Kadam (2017). The author's ensured
information concerning the participants was anonymous (Yip, Han & Sng, 2016). The
participants were free to opt-out if they felt they did not want to continue (p. 97). The study was
performed in accordance with the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and then it was
approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (p. 98). To maximize the principle of
beneficence, the researchers decided to conduct the study one month after the students had
completed their examinations and were waiting for graduation. There was also maximum
confidentiality of the participants (p. 98). Additionally, the researchers explain that all the
participants received a letter of invitation to participate in the study included a consent form that
they needed to fill.

ARTICLE CRITIQUE 6
References
Cooper I. D. (2015). How to write an original research paper (and get it published). Journal of
the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 103(2), 67–68. doi:10.3163/1536-
5050.103.2.001
Kadam R. A. (2017). Informed consent process: A step further towards making it meaningful!.
Perspectives in Clinical Research, 8(3), 107–112. doi:10.4103/picr.PICR_147_16
Lawler M, Alsina D, Adams R.A. (2018) on behalf of the Bowel Cancer U.K. Critical Research
Gaps in Critical research gaps and recommendations.
Paradis, E., O'Brien, B., & Martimianakis, M. A. (2016). Design: selection of data collection
methods. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 8(2), 263–264. doi:10.4300/JGME-D-
16-00098.1
Simpson S. H. (2015). Creating a data analysis plan: what to consider when choosing statistics
for a study. The Canadian Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, 68(4), 311–317.
doi:10.4212/cjhp.v68i4.1471
Ulvund, I., & Mordal, E. (2017). The impact of short term clinical placement in a developing
country on nursing students: A qualitative descriptive study. Nurse Education Today, 55,
96-100. DOI: 10.1016/j.nedt.2017.05.013
Yip, C., Han, N. R., & Sng, B. L. (2016). Legal and ethical issues in research. Indian Journal of
Anesthesia. 60(9), 684–688, doi:10.4103/0019-5049.190627
Zubin, S., & Sutton, J. (2014). Qualitative research: getting started. The Canadian Journal of
Hospital Pharmacy, 67(6), 436–440. doi:10.4212/cjhp.v67i6.1406