Objectives Achieved!

1. Student will apply knowledge of data collection procedures by collecting data.
There is so much I learned by actually collecting the data for this research study. From beginning to end, this whole process was pretty much new to me. I assisted in collecting data in the Milledgeville community in face to face settings and through the internet. I was able to market the survey using flyers, email, and facebook.

2. Student will display self-reliance in working independently.
I made suggestions to increase the readability of the survey. I stayed in touch with the research team through Dr. Bondal. I created and edited this blog without any assistance from outside. I came up with my own ideas of ways I could market the survey to the community.

3. Student will display professional commitment when working with members of research team.
I must admit, I was a little late with my phone calls to the research team at times. Other than that, I strived my best to be as courteous and professional as possible when I interacted with the research team.

4. Student will display ethical standards in conducting research.
People recruited to take the survey were participating voluntarily. I promise - nobody was harmed during this data collection process! Everyone was given an equal opportunity to take the survey as well.

5. Student will critically describe and evaluate research experience.
"Laura's Research Study Blog" was created when I began with this research experience so that I could share my ideas. I have demonstrated critical description and evaluation by posting to this blog.

Overall, one of the best things that I think I learned during this research process is how to use a Wiki and other Web 2.0 tools. I had heard of "wikis" during Ms. Sewell's class last semester, and had even attempted to create my own. I had to play around with navigating around the site to figure out how it all worked. At first, I couldn't figure out how to get back to what I had been looking at previously. Of course, I eventually realized that I was already using Web 2.0 tools in my every day life. And now I have a better understanding of what a big part of our lives this "Web 2.0" (which I didn't even have a valid working definition for until we were well into the process) already is and how much more it is going to be in the future.

I see a glimpse of all of the possibilities of what we can do as nurses and myself specifically, as I become an advanced practice nurse. I can only imagine me working out in the boondocks, communicating with my patients via chat rooms and email. Who knows what there is in store for us. I am excited to continue learning as I pursue my education, maybe even do a little research (OMG, did I say research?!?!).

As I learned things in my research class, I could understand the application to the real research process. It was awesome working with Dr. Bondal, Ms. Sewell, and Dr. Colvin. Too bad I never got to come to a meeting face to face. Thanks, again, to the research team, for allowing me this opportunity.

Our Presentation is Finally Over

Woohoo...the research conference was this past Friday. Thank goodness that is over with. I really can't believe it's finally over. And guess what?!?! We made a 94 on our presentation. (and I get to replace my lowest test grade with that -- which was much lower) Now we need to finalize the proposal. Have put it out there for peer review, so just waiting to get some feedback on that. OMG....I can't believe we're almost done with this research class.

Let me tell you about the results that we analyzed for the student research conference....We thought that younger people would be more likely to use Web 2.0 than older people - Wrong! In our sample, age was not a factor that influenced people's use of Web 2.0 for healthcare reasons. People of all ages are using the internet and Web 2.0 tools this day & age. Like I have mentioned before, 2 of my grandparents use Facebook, as well as younger members of my family (my cousin Sam is on FB and she just turned 10!) We thought that women would be more likely to use Web 2.0 than men - Wrong! Once again, gender was not a factor that influenced people's use of Web 2.0 for healthcare reasons. We thought that higher income individuals would use Web 2.0 more than lower income individuals - Wrong again! Now that the internet and Web 2.0 tools are so readily available to all, income is not an issue when it comes to people's use of Web 2.0 for healthcare reasons. Even if you don't have the internet at home, public facilities (including libraries) are available so even the poorest of folks can use the web. We thought that better educated and whites would use Web 2.0 more than less educated and minorities - wrong and wrong! There is no correlation between any of the factors that we studied and the use of web 2.0 for healthcare reasons. Therefore, there must be other reasons that people use Web 2.0 for healthcare reasons. Those other reasons should be determined and studied so that we as nurses can do our part to educate our patients on ways they can be involved in their healthcare!

The end is in sight.....

The end of the semester is near. I feel like I have so much to do. I have been trying to find different places around Milledgeville to put up flyers announcing the survey. The research conference is this Friday. I also have to be student moderator for part of the day, but that shouldn't be too bad. I have to work Thursday, but I will be off until then. Sonja and I are meeting every day this week until we are finished. It's getting pretty busy around here, but I will try to keep you posted.

Update

As of this morning when I spoke with the research team, 80 people have already taken the survey. That's a pretty good number. But, of course we want a lot more! Unfortunately, no post cards were ever made, but we did talk about getting some fliers created. Hopefully those will be ready by the first of next week. I probably need to wrap up with analyzing data for the student research conference the beginning of the following week. That should give me plenty of time to go out into the community next week and collect some more data. I now have to work three 12 hour shifts in a row for the next 3 days. I have been off for 6 days and really NOT ready to go back, but we gotta do what we gotta do. I'll be back after Easter....

....Data Collection Continues

I continue to tell everyone I come into contact with to take the survey. Some people I see will tell me "I haven't had a chance to take that survey yet" and some remind me that they have already submitted their survey. Today, I posted this blog and a link to the survey on my facebook page. I am determined to get this out to everyone I know. I plan on going out into the community this week, maybe to the library, or I thought about handing out post cards at the post office if they would allow me to do that. You see, Dr. Bondal said something about these postcards they had made that had all of the information about the survey and the link and everything. So, I could hand those out in various places and hopefully get a lot more responses to the survey. I will ask Dr. Bondal about them when I call her in the morning. I need to go make sure I have my alarm clock set to go off at 9:30 in the AN reminding me to call in to Dr. Bondal. I think I have missed calling her on time two times this semester already, once cause I forgot and once cause I overslept! Oh, and we were able to work on the proposal for class and the student conference coming up really soon April 16th. My research partner and I met with Dr. Bondal yesterday AM to go over what we had already and get her input on what we should change or how we could make it better. I think she wants it to be perfect or something...haha! Anyways, I better go for now. I have a lot of other school work I need to be working on now......

Spring Break 2010

As you can tell by the title, we're on break from school this week. I haven't gotten a whole lot of feedback from survey takers, but most of the comments I have heard have pretty much all been the same. They tell me that the questions were confusing. One of the nurses at work, one of my really good friends, told me that she felt like a "dummy" because she didn't know what half of that stuff was! I told her that was ok that she didn't know what some of it was, because we wanted to collect all kinds of data. That's what we're trying to figure out: the who, what, when, where, and why people (AKA HC consumers/providers) use Web 2.0. A lot of people say they don't know what most of the words mean, so that makes me wonder if that's what our results are going to prove...that a lot of people don't really use these tools yet. I guess we'll see pretty soon.

......AND WE'RE OFF!

The data collection process has finally begun. The survey has finally been launched. For anybody reading this, I encourage you to participate in our survey to determine how healthcare consumers and healthcare providers use Web tools for personal and healthcare reasons. Evidence suggests that Internet use and technology make healthcare delivery better. The address to the site where you can take the survey is below. I couldn't make it work when I tried to create a link so you could just click on it. When I went to view the blog, the link was missing, just vanished. Anyways, so sorry it's not so convenient but if you could be so kind as to copy and paste in your address bar. And if anybody can tell me how to make it work, I would try to fix it if I knew how.

http://www2.gcsu.edu/irb/health.htm

Today, I sent the survey link via email to 43 people in my address book. I got failure notices returned on 2 of the contacts, so my email ended up going out to 41 people. That was just about everybody in my address book except for the businesses and the addresses for the people in the research group. I sent it to my old boss (a doctor in Warner Robins), my grandparents, my kid's teachers...I mean, everybody! In the email, I encouraged those I emailed to get their spouses (or whoever they want) to take the survey as well. I also emailed everyone in both of my classes to ask them to take the survey as well.

Just as Dr. Bondal said Monday night, I, too, am excited to "crunch numbers" and analyze the data we collect to find out the results. Of course, I have my own ideas and I have expressed those in my hypothesis. I think that younger people, women, better educated, higher income people will be more likely to use Web 2.0 for healthcare reasons. I wonder if we predicted accurately. I wonder how many people out there even use Web tools for healthcare reasons. I use a lot of different Web tools for school now, but until recently (in the past year), I didn't even know what Web 2.0 was. Wow, how much I have learned in such a short time. I think it is absolutely amazing how technology is continuously changing and improving and expanding. It's inspiring to be involved, especially at this stage. To my teachers and the research committee, thanks for this opportunity.