Quantitative Research Design, Research Paper Example

When studying the relationship between preoperative warming using a forced air warming device and the patient body temperature upon arrival at the post-anesthesia care unit, a quasi quantitative design strategy should be used. Strengths of a quasi experimental design include the ability to control the assignment of subjects to treatment or control; weaknesses include internal validity problems stemming from the possibility of the control and treatment groups not being comparable.

I would use a simple random sampling in order to perform this quasi experimental design, in order to ensure that there is no classification error when picking subjects (Torrie et al., 2005). It is also quite simple, making it easy to interpret the information collected in the experiment.
Inclusion criteria for this type of research design includes having general anesthesia surgery scheduled that lasts from 1 to 3 hours, being 18-65 years of age, and no paralysis or known paresthesia (Wagner, 2007). Exclusion criteria includes patients who have hyper/hypothyroidism, febrile status (having a temperature greater than 38 degrees Celsius), and inability to speak English. Researchers determine this criteria by eliminating any situations that could provide a false positive, and making sure that no participants engage in the study that could be harmed by it.
On an exact test with a bivariate normal model, using an a priori power analysis, the total sample size is 115. Power analyses are important in that they ensure that the research has been sufficiently performed, and that the sample size is appropriate.

References

Torrie, J., Yip, P., & Robinson, E. (2005). Comparison of forced-air warming and radiant heating during transurethral prostatic resection under spinal anaesthesia..Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, 33(6), 733-738.

Wagner, V. D. (2007). Effect of a preoperative warming intervention on the acute phase response of surgical stress. Theses and Dissertations, 2399, 1.