Analysis Of Nursing Doctoral Dissertations In The United States And China

Objectives:1. To develop the scientific, objective, operational classification system for the analysis of current research status and framework for the analysis of the quality in nursing doctoral dissertations in the U.S. and China. It would be applied as the guideline for the analysis of research status and quality in nursing doctoral dissertations in China.2. To summarize the advanced experiences of research in nursing doctoral dissertations and doctoral programs in the U.S. on the basis of the comprehensive analysis of research status and quality in the U.S. and China. It will promote the quality of nursing doctoral dissertations and doctoral programs in China to the status-quo level of the world as soon as possible.3. To put forward the strategies to enhance the quality of nursing doctoral dissertations in China based on the analysis of the current status and quality of nursing doctoral dissertations in the U.S. and China.Methods:1. Studies on the quality of doctoral programs and the analysis of nursing doctoral dissertations in domestic and foreign countries were reviewed to find out the current research trends on the quality of doctoral programs and the analysis of nursing doctoral dissertations by using the literature research method. The contents and methods of this study were defined.2. The theoretical significance of the viewpoint of higher education quality, the Total Quality Management Theory and the methodological foundations for the content analysis were explored by using theoretical research method. The theoretical foundations of this study were built on the basis of these studies.3. According to the literature research and content analysis method, we developed a classification system and a framework for the quality analysis in nursing doctoral dissertations in the U.S. and China, and then defined the categories and indicators through pre-analysis and expert panel discussion. Finally, the classification system including six categories and sub-categories and the framework for the quality analysis including originality, academics and normalization were developed.4. The content analysis was used to conduct the analysis of the current research status and the quality analysis of nursing doctoral dissertations.912dissertations in the U.S. and56dissertations in China were used for the analysis of the current research status.56dissertations in the U.S. and56dissertations in China were used for the quality analysis. All dissertations were collected from PQDT and CNKI databases.5. Based on the above studies, we put forward the strategies to enhance the quality of nursing doctoral dissertations in China by using the theoretical research method.Results:1. The classification system for the analysis of the current research status of nursing doctoral dissertations in the U.S. and China was defined using the content analysis, including research areas, sources of research problems, types of literature review, theoretical or conceptual models, types of research design, study subjects, sampling and data collection methods. All the six categories were divided into several sub-categories. Furthermore, the conceptual and operational definitions of all the categories and some examples were described.2. Based on the literature research method, the framework for the quality analysis of nursing doctoral dissertations in the U.S. and China was defined, including originality, academics and normalization. All the three quality indicators were divided into several sub-indicators. Moreover, the quality indicators and evaluation criteria were also defined.3. The results of the analysis of current research status of nursing doctoral dissertations in the U.S. were shown as follows:(1) basic situations:The numbers of dissertations were on the rise and the main distribution of the numbers of dissertations was the University of California, San Francisco (4.4%).(2) research areas:The most frequently research area was community health nursing research (34.1%), including some common topics as the vulnerable population, the women, the old people and the family’s health, etc. The next most frequently research area was clinical health nursing research (27.4%), including some common topics as symptom management and quality of life, etc.(3) sources of research topics:The sources of research topics focused on the clinical experiences and nursing literatures.(4) types of literature reviews:The main distribution of the types of literature reviews was traditional literature review(84.8%).(5) theoretical foundations of research:Of the total912dissertations in this analysis,84.0%used theoretical or conceptual models and69.1%used single theoretical or conceptual models and60.7%used non-nursing theoretical or conceptual models.(6) types of research designs:Of the total912dissertations in this analysis,65.5%used quantitative research designs, but24.7%used qualitative research designs. The most frequently quantitative research design was non-experimental research design (79.6%) and the most frequently qualitative research design was phenomenology method (29.3%).(7) study subjects and methods:The most frequently study subject was patient (40.0%) and the most frequently sampling method was convenient sampling method (41.7%) and the most frequently data collection method was two or more methods (40.4%) in this analysis.4. The results of the quality analysis of nursing doctoral dissertations in the U.S. were shown as follows:(1) originality:Of the total56dissertations in this analysis,78%were funded and44.4%had originality in theories or methods and65.2%of the total research findings were SCI papers. The results of further analysis also showed that there were certain correlations among the perspectives of research themes, the funded situations and the original research findings.(2) academics:Of the total56dissertations in this analysis,92.9%used theoretical or conceptual frameworks and most of the theories were authoritative. The results also showed most literature reviews were extensive and the implicit research workload was heavy.(3) normalization:most of the dissertations were normative and only few doctoral dissertations were non-normative in regard to references.5. The results of the analysis of current research status in nursing doctoral dissertations in China were shown as follows:(1) basic situations:The total numbers of dissertations were on the rise and the main distribution of the numbers of dissertations were the Second Military Medical University (25%) and Peking Union Medical College (25%).(2) research areas:The most frequently research area was clinical nursing research (37.5%), including some common topics as quality of life, etc. The next most frequently research area was community health nursing research (21.4%), including some common topics as the women, the old people and the child’s health, etc.(3) sources of research topics:The sources of research topics focused on the clinical experiences and nursing literatures.(4) types of literature reviews:The main distribution of the types of literature reviews was traditional literature review(92.9%).(5) theoretical foundations of research:Of the total56dissertations in this analysis,51.8%used theoretical or conceptual models and48.3%used non-nursing theoretical or conceptual models and69.0%used multiple theoretical or conceptual models.(6) types of research designs:Of the total56dissertations in this analysis,64.3%used quantitative research designs, but26.8%used mixed research designs. The most frequently quantitative research design was non-experimental research design (69.4%) and the common qualitative research design was grounded theory method, etc.(7) study subjects and research methods: The most frequently study subject was patients(51.8%) and the next frequently study subject was two or more subjects(23.2%). The most frequently sampling method was convenient sampling(30.3%) method and the most frequently data collection method was two or more methods(75.0%) in this analysis.6. The results of the quality analysis of nursing doctoral dissertations in China were shown as follows:(1) originality:Of the total56dissertations in this analysis,51.8%were funded and17.9%had originality in theories or methods and18.2%of the total research findings were SCI papers.(2) academics:Of the total56dissertations in this analysis,28.6%used theoretical or conceptual frameworks and few of the theories were not authoritative. The results also showed most literature reviews were extensive and the research workload was heavy.(3) normalization: most of the dissertations were normative and only few doctoral dissertations were non-normative in regard to references.Conclusions:1. There were both similarities and differences between the U.S. and China in the analysis of current research status and the quality in nursing doctoral dissertations.The main reasons resulting in the situations lied in the development of nursing research, the system of nursing doctoral programs,the national funds for nursing research and socio-cultural background, etc. Therefore, we should learn the advanced experiences of nursing doctoral programs in the U.S. to guide the doctoral researches and apply these experiences as significant reference to improve the quality of doctoral dissertations in nursing in our country.2. Based on the above studies and Total Quality Management Theory, the strategies to enhance the quality of nursing doctoral dissertations in our country were discussed from three aspects:the enrollment system of doctoral students, the doctoral training mechanism and the assessment of doctoral dissertations in nursing. Firstly, we should explore the enrollment system of nursing doctoral students and optimize the quality of enrollments. Secondly, we should try to improve doctoral training mechanism and enhance the quality of nursing doctoral dissertations. Finally, we should improve the audit mechanism of doctoral dissertations and ensure the quality of nursing doctoral dissertations as soon as possible.