Publisher's Synopsis
This text - part of Churchill Livingstone's Healthcare Active Learning open learning series, published in conjunction with authors from the Open Learning Foundation - is intended to be of use to nursing and allied health students at post-registration level, i.e. for practitioners and post-foundation level students for whom research is important in improving their practice and their job prospects, although foundation level students wishing to improve their knowledge may also find this text of interest.;This text takes students through one small and one larger scale experiment, covering areas such as drawing up theories and hypotheses, describing and analyzing results, reaching conclusions, and presenting the report. Benefits to individual users include: a resource for self education and a gateway to improved practice for the busy health care practitioner and student; by combining the skills and knowledge of health care professionals with those of experienced educators, this unit provides access to high quality educational opportunities, by removing many institutional barriers (e.g. teacher availability, time restrictions) that deny this access particularly to part-time workers, night staff, and those with domestic arrangements which exclude conventional course attendance. Benefits to managers and education providers include: students following a course of self study allows teachers to provide more one-to-one teaching and reduced class size, as well as better course development and planning; and it allows time savings to be made on course development and planning.;The quality of the materials and their effectiveness is ensured by the reputations and experience of the Open Learning Foundation member institutions, each of which is dedicated to creating a framework for effective, flexible learning. This unit offers approximately 35 hours of study.