Description of the Intervention
The intervention proposed in this research involves providing frequent 30-minute-long education sessions to patients with cardiovascular diseases as well as their relatives and caretakers. They will be taught useful techniques and practices of managing the disease in day-to-day activities, as well as in cases of emergency. Classes will be conducted in specialized rooms by an instructor, and the patients will be provided with the visual and audio material to understand and memorize the techniques better (Giuse, Koonce, Storrow, Kusnoor, & Ye, 2012). The alternative intervention will include the distribution of informative brochures only.
Research Instruments
The instruments implemented in this research would vary depending on the purpose of their implementation. As such, the use of some instruments would be validated by the need to educate the participants on the matter of cardiovascular diseases as well as on the subject of personal self-care, day-to-day procedures, and emergency responses. Other instruments would be utilized to test the participants’ retained knowledge, as well as personal perceptions towards the intervention. As such, three types of instruments are identified for this research:
Educational material
This includes instructional papers, educational brochures, videos, and audio recordings, as well as lessons taught to the participants during classes (Bastable, 2017). The validity and reliability of the educational material would be tested and supported by its sources. All information shared with the participants would be taken from academic and peer-reviewed medical journals.
Tests
Specialized tests would be used to gauge the theoretical and practical knowledge of the participants from both the test group and the control group. These tests would be structured based on the knowledge provided to the participants and would exclude any information outside of the curriculum, to avoid confusion. The validity of these tests is assured by the instruction material which they are based upon.
Surveys
All participants would be asked to pass a simple survey to gauge the attitude towards both interventions. Surveys are common and valid instruments to be used in this type of research (Houser, 2014).
Data Collection Procedures
Data collection procedures in this research involve measuring the knowledge of every individual participant during different intervals of the intervention, as well as gauging their overall attitude towards the intervention as a whole. This data will be acquired using tests and surveys. Every member will be asked to take a test at the beginning and the end of the research to be able to estimate the effectiveness of each educational intervention. None of the participants would be informed about the tests, to avoid purposeful preparations, which have the potential to alter the results of the test. At the end of each intervention, surveys would be distributed to the participants to assess the perceived effectiveness of each intervention.
Extraneous Variables
One of the most prominent extraneous variables in educational research involves the personal qualities of the participants and how they may improve or diminish the effectiveness of the intervention. A patient with an academic background and previous medical knowledge would benefit more from the provided educational material when compared to a participant with no records of higher studies (Houser, 2014). To mitigate this variable for the proposed research, the majority of the participants would be chosen from similar educational and economic backgrounds. While this would reduce the amount of potential variation, it would be negligible due to the relatively small sample size. Other potential extraneous variables would be related to the personal dedication and interest of the participants, as well as life factors outside of the researchers’ control (Giuse et al., 2012).
References
Bastable, S. B. (2017). Essentials of patient education. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Giuse, N. B., Koonce, T. Y., Storrow, A. B., Kusnoor, S. V., & Ye, F. (2012). Using health literacy and learning style preferences to optimize the delivery of health information. Journal of Health Communication, 17(3), 122-140.
Houser, R. A. (2014). Counseling and educational research (3rd ed.). New York, NY: SAGE Publications.