Industrial And Organisational Psychology Project (Research Proposal Sample)

Industrial and Organizational Project Part 2
NAME
INSTITUTION
COURSE AND PREFIX NUMBER
Methodology and Design
My dissertation is on how organizational culture can be used to drive compliance with sterile protocols in healthcare. This research study applies a quantitative methodology with a descriptive research design. The purpose of this quantitative descriptive research is to analyse to what extent organisational culture, knowledge, attitudes and behaviours influence standard sterilization protocol compliance for healthcare workers at acute hospitals. The rate of nosocomial infections is on the rise and the compliance of healthcare workers is at the core of it. With the anticipated research design, sampling, data collection and data analysis approaches; the most appropriate methodology for the study proved to be quantitative. The research questions necessitated the use of numerical/quantitative data hence the quantitative methodology was most suitable for this research study. The quantitative methodology and a descriptive design also suits the data collection approach for this research and are appropriate for the ordinal data sets as the independent variables in this study necessitate. Yilmaz (2013) elucidates that quantitative research methodologies are suitable for descriptive research when the researcher aims to confirm a hypothesis about a phenomena and align with descriptive statistics and descriptive data.
This general approach selected for this research study entails the collection of data so that the data can be measured/quantified and subjected to data analysis so as to back or refute the hypotheses .Williams (2011) explains quantitative researches as approaches to research studies that involve a statistical and numerical approach to research design. The research revolves around two research questions. First; how can the constructs of organizational culture be applied in hospital settings to help curb nosocomial infections? The second question is; how can the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of health care workers be altered to influence positive infection control adherence. From these two research question, it is clear the appropriateness of the quantitative methodology as the study tries to explain and make conjectures that will apply to other situations and people. The motive, hereby, is to determine, ratify and/or validate relationships and develop generalizations that add to theory. According to Leedy& Ormrod (2001) this is the foundation of a quantitative research methodology.
This study applies a descriptive research design. Leedy& Ormrod (2001) explain descriptive research design as the research approach whereby the situation is analysed as it exists in its current state. They further posit that this research entails the determination of features of a give phenomenon based on observational basis or through the investigation of the correlation between two or more phenomena. Due to the critical role played by the health care workers in the prevention and control of nosocomial infections, the comprehension of the relation of their knowledge, attitudes and behaviour to standard protocol compliance is essential. It is important to fully understand the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of healthcare workers and how these constructs affect their compliance to standard infection prevention and control protocols. The study describes the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of the healthcare workers and how these influence their adherence to standard protocols. The fulfilment of this research will need the use of descriptive and inferential statistics hence the application of descriptive design. In addition, the collection of the descriptive data as well as the use of questionnaires to collect the data implies the adoption of a quantitative research design.
Sampling
The sample population will involve one hundred and ninety health care workers of two acute hospitals in the United States. The departments included from the two acute hospitals sampled will be sterile processing departments, operating theatres, dialysis units and surgical wards. The area of interest is on surgical site instruments in sterile processing department. These departments are the most prone to nosocomial infections such as surgical site infections. Every health care worker in these departments is crucial to the study. The target population is those care providers charged with the sterilization of surgical site instruments as well as those who use these instruments. These include the surgical nurses, the medical interns, the sterile processing department workers, the surgeons and all the care providers who attend to patient undergoing surgeries.
The participants will be selected through simple random sampling technique. This is a form of probability sampling approach whereby everyone has an equal chance of being selected (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2012). This helps to cull a smaller sample from the larger sample so as to be able to accurately make generalizations regarding the larger group. The target is to involve more than eighty percent of all the healthcare workers. It also targets the population to cut across all the relevant professions, departments in both hospitals. This sample size is not small hence will lower the margin of error and increase the confidence level. This increases the accuracy of the collected data as well as the accuracy of the overall research. A target of eighty percent of the population implies a confidence level of ninety percent and a minimal margin of error of three point five percent.
Sources of data
The research study applies primary sources of data. It uses researcher-made questionnaires for the data collection. This is in line with the research design as this is a quantitative descriptive research. In addition, the collection of the ordinal data set for the independent variables suit the use of questionnaires for data collection. The questionnaires used in the research will be titled “Standard Sterilization Protocol Adherence”. The questionnaires will be in line with the standards, manuals and guidelines by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The questionnaires will be self-administered comprising of ten items which assess the knowledge, attitudes, organisational structure and behaviour self-reported on the practice of standard protocol compliance Likert scale: never, sometimes, often and always. There will be a checklist to behaviour in the practices of standard protocols such as manipulating needle, proper protective personal equipment (PPE) based on the CDC manual, proper hand hygiene and proper sterilization processes of surgical site instruments. A practitioners attitudes and knowledge scale is inclusive in the questionnaire containing fifteen items that assess their perception, feeling and knowledge on hospital acquired infections, their transmissions and their control.
The questionnaires will be divided in four parts. The first section is the sociodemographic section. This is an open section where the respondents fill in their data. The second part is the scale compliance to use of standard protocols in the daily and routine practices. This section applies a four-point Likert scale ranging from never to always. The third part relates to the organisation structure of the hospital and how it influences their compliance. The responses will have well defined questions which the respondents will answer true or false to. The final part is on the practitioners’ knowledge and attitudes which the respondents answer true or false to. Due to the probability of bias in the third section, the section is based and modified from the Socially Desirable Response Set Five-Item Survey (SDRS-5) by RAND( Rand Health, n.d).This has been tested for internal consistency and reliability in two samples with estimated Alpha reliability estimates of 0.66 and 0.68 ( Rand Health, n.d). The use of the Statistical Packaging for Social Sciences (SPSS) software will come in handy in facilitating the testing for Cronbach’s Alpha which will confirm the scale reliability and internal consistency.
Self-administered questionnaires help to accurately collect information without the interference of the researcher (Lavrakas, 2008). The questionnaires will be administered in person to the sample population. The questionnaires will be accompanied by the University’s research approval and consent from the hospital management. These will help ensure confidentiality of the collected information and the rightful purpose of the data collected for study and research purposes. The administration of the questionnaires will be aided by the management of the two hospitals who will help in identifying the personnel and issuing them with the questionnaires through the hospital reception area where they will be directed to pick the surveys and drop them after they have filled them.
Data Analysis
The data will be analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. This descriptive statistical analysis is aligned with the quantitative methodology and the descriptive research design. This will be aided by the application of Statistical Packaging for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, version 23GA for Microsoft Windows 10. With SPSS, data can be analysed in three main ways; describing the data, evaluating the relationship between variables and comparing groups to establish significant differences. Description of data involves the use of statistics such as frequency, mean, median, mode and standard deviation. To compare between variables, statistics such as regression, correlation and factor analyses. Comparisons are made with the use of statistics such as ANOVA and t-tests.
Being a descriptive study, the analysis will involve much of describing the data. This is especi...