How thorough was the review of literature?

What was the gap of the knowledge to be studied?

Does the literature review support the need for the study?

IRB and Consent done?

How were participants selected?

Were they representative of the target population?

According to Clark et al. (2008) all of the participants of the study were undergraduate nursing students with the majority of them being women between the ages of 20 to 24, and full-time students, all of which were enrolled in required courses (p. 115). Participants were selected from Pharmacology and Case Management courses (Clark et al., 2008, p. 114).

Since the research questions focused on students’ experiences and emotions about team-based learning, using nursing students during nursing courses as participants in this study do indeed represent the target population.

Is design appropriate for study purpose(s)?

Overall, the research questions focused on determining any changes in students’ attitudes and experiences on team-based learning, as well as the differences of students’ engagements between team-based learning and traditional lecture format (Clark et al., 2008, p. 114). The two different research designs are necessary in order to answer the two main research questions, and therefore are appropriate for this study’s purpose.

What is/are the independent variable(s)?

What is/are the dependent variable(s)?

Dependent variables- Students participation and engagement, student enjoyment, teams consisting of 7 different students, and pretest and posttest scores.

Second Research Design: Students in both the Nursing Pharmacology or Case Management class completed the Value of Teams Survey at the beginning and end of the semester. Also, at the end of the semester the same students were asked to grade their individual team’s process and performance (Clark et al., 2008, p. 114).

Results were collected from the Case Management 5-hour course (which included the team-based learning) that lasted 8 weeks and had 70 nursing students that were enrolled. Four modules, of the total eight modules, used team-based learning. All teams were formed by the course director, which consisted of 7 students. The teams remained together throughout the entire course. Four Readiness Assurance Tests were conducted during the course where students were able to provide immediate feedback, challenge multiple-choice questions, and all teams worked together on the same problem. At the end of the course, students were graded on individual and group Readiness Assurance Tests and peer evaluations (Clark et al., 2008, p. 115).

In contrast, the Nursing Pharmacology class lasted 15 weeks, which included the lecture format teaching (Clark et al., 2008, p. 114).

Describe the reliability and validity of

Instruments used.

Another instrument used was the 9-item Likert-type Value of Team survey, which measures a student’s appreciation of learning and was also developed and tested on the FIPSE team-based learning project (Clark et al., 2008, p. 114). According to Clark et al. (2008) this survey’s “initial factor analysis demonstrated adequate validity” (p. 114). Cronbach alphas were also used and it was determined this instrument also showed high reliability in this research example of nursing students (Clark et al., 2008, p. 114-115). For example, alphas were 0.84 and 0.88 at time 1 (working with peers- 4 items) and 0.76 and 0.81 at time 2 (value of group work- 5 items), while during the FIPSE team-based learning project Cronbach alphas were 0.92 at time 1 and 0.87 at time 2 (Clark et al., 2008, p. 114).

How were data analyzed?

Was the analysis appropriate (appropriate statistics used)?

What were the outcome measures?

Statistics used were Pearson r correlations for cross-sectional relationships between variables, a t test was done to determine group differences in engagement of lecture or team-based learning, and a paired t test for team-based learning pedagogy and the change in value of team’s scores during the course length (Clark et al., 2008, p. 115). These statistics are appropriate in comparing 2 populations with 2 samples (peer and group with pretest and posttest- paired t test), to assess whether 2 groups are different from one another (lecture or team-based learning from t test), and how everything is related (Pearson r correlations). Therefore, the analysis is applicable to support this research study.

Outcome measures of Table 3 summarized that there was a dramatic increase in participation in team-based learning rather than traditional lecture format learning. However, there was a substantial difference in enjoyment of students with higher scores in lecture setting rather than team-learning based course setting. Results from Table 4 summarized that students rated their attitude towards the value of teams relatively high and this value minimally changed between the pretest and posttest (Clark et al., 2008, p. 115).

Validity: accuracy of results & Reliability (taken from Schmidt & Brown, 2014, Chapter 6)

Reports on the attrition rate, which is not high.

Minimizes both type I (finds statistical significance when there isn’t a real relationship) and type II (not statistically significant when there is a relationship) errors

Is the information obtained from this study applicable to those in practice?

Documentation of IRB approval?

Your group’s opinion of if this project was worthwhile to conduct.

What harms were possible for subjects (recall your CITI training) and how was this mitigated?

Do you have any concerns of fraud or deception on the part of the researchers?

Any possible conflicts of interest detected?