Seeking New Research Methodologies

Abstract

Nursing Research Conference of the Japan Academy of Nursing Science is “Nursing Phenomena and Research Design:Search for New Research Methodology.”There are several reasons why I decided to focus on research methodology. The reason is that the nursing education system in Japan has undergone many changes.After the Second World War, the ”Public Health Nurse, Midwife and Nurse Law”was enacted in1948,and now we have three kinds of national licenses in nursing :Nurse, Public Health Nurse and Midwife.From the1960s to the1980s, three-year diploma nursing programs and junior nursing college programs dominated nursing education in our country. In 1967, the nursing curriculum changed from training based on practice,to education based on theory, and since then Japanese nurses have made efforts to establish a higher education system in Nursing. Since the elderly population is increasing rapidly in Japan and there is a public responsibility to provide care for the elderly,the requirements for nursing education, and for nurses,are changing.Our society needs to provide effective hospital-and community-based care delivered by highly educated professional nurses.In the 1990’s,the Japanese Ministry of Education made a decision to develop higher education in Nursing.As a result, while there were 11university-based nursing programs in 1989,the number has boomed to 119university-based nursing programs in 2004. In addition, the number of master’s degree programs in nursing has increased from 4 in 1989 to 74 in 2004, and the number of doctoral programs has increased from 2 in 1989 to 25 in 2004. Finally,the number of university faculty members who are registered nurses in 2004is3,590. Accordingly, as higher education in nursing has developed,the population of nurses who are interested in nursing research has increased, as has the amount of research conducted. For example, the number of the master’s degree program students in2004is1,269and the number of the doctoral students in nursing is228.In our country,master’s program students usually must write a thesis. Therefore, perhaps more than 1,000 master’s theses and doctoral dissertations will be produced during the next two or three years.Furthermore,many clinical nurses who work at hospitals make an effort to conduct research or study. In Japan, if you are a nurse, you participate in “nursing research or study”in clinical settings,regardless of your training. Traditionally,Japanese nursing has been valued as clinical nursing care,particularly patient care.Clinical nurses develop the quality of care through group discussions,case conferences and case studies in their nursing team,that is,through“quality circles”.Even though the amount of nursing research conducted by university faculty members has increased, the results of this research are not relevant to clinical nursing practice. We have to ask ourselves:Do these research projects make a difference?That is, do the results of the research projects contribute to the quality of nursing care? I reviewed the papers focusing on research methodologies which have been published in the Journal of the 第5回国際看護学術集会