Critical Evaluation Of Research Studies On Stimulants And Academic Performance In University Students

Part A – Strengths and weaknesses of each research study

The profession of nursing practice is aimed at delivering optimal quality care to the patient population. For achieving this goal, it is imperative that nurses engage in evidence-based practice wherein one is required to apply insights from research into practice. Evidence-based practice refers to the process of undertaking research on the recent evidence present among a large and rich pool of literature about a certain care aspect and implementing the same in practice. It is to be noted that the translation from theory to practice is crucial and a critical analysis of the research is done for understanding its suitability for the concerned practice scenario (Houser, 2016). The extant paper is based on a health scenario and aims to carry out an inquiry in healthcare evidence for addressing the scenario. Based on the scenario the PICO question that is to be answered through research is “Do stimulants increase academic performance in university students?”. Critical analysis of two research articles is done for gaining insights from the paper pertaining to the research question and understanding their applicability for the concerned scenario. The paper also highlights the barriers for application of the gathered evidence for the scenario and the alignment of the studies with the PICO question.

Part A

Hildt, E., Lieb, K., &Franke, A. G. (2014).Life context of pharmacological academic performance enhancement among university students – a qualitative approach.BMC Medical Ethics, 15(1), 23-23.doi:10.1186/1472-6939-15-23

Authorship

1.    The authors of the research article are Elisabeth Hildt, Klaus Lieb and Andreas Gunter Franke. The first author is an expert of Neuroethics from the Department of Philosophy. The second and third authors are from Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Centre Mainz, Germany.
2.    There was no conflict of interest declared by the authors.

Research aims

1.    The research addressed the question “do university students use stimulant drugs for enhancing the cognitive functioning and successively better academic results as well as other reasons?” The study had the aim of understanding whether stimulant drugs had implications for students in the context of academic results as well as other non-academic purposes. There was no hypothesis considered for the study.
2.    As per the researcehrs, the background for the present study was formed by the research gap generated in existing literature regarding the use of stimulant drugs y university students. There was an absence of qualitative studies that successfully highlighted the matter under study. Empirical data was also missing on the contextual factors and real-life influences of such stimulant drugs.

Design

1.    The research upheld a qualitative methodology and used extensive semi-structured interview as the data collection method. The interviews were done with the help of a questionnaire that had close-ended questions. The researchers appointed three interviewers and a psychologist for carrying out face-to-face interviews. Two individuals were responsible for carrying out an interview which were tape recorded. In addition, one of the interviewers was to ask the questions while the other interviewer had to note down the responses given. The purpose of this was to prevent any loss of information. The data analysis process considered extracting transcription of the records verbatim. The analysis was done systematically through inductive category development approach.
2.    It was appropriate to use qualitative research methodology for gaining rich information from the participants about their viewpoints and perceptions regarding use of stimulant drugs. Since the research wanted to understand the feelings and sensitivity of the respondents to the research questions, the face-to-face interviews were highly beneficial. The interviewers could highlight the depth of the responses that were given and help the respondents to answer the questions (Nieswiadomy& Bailey, 2017). It is, however, to be noted that close-ended questions were not completely suitable since such questions limited the extraction of valuable data from the respondents. The inductive approach for analysing data was suitable since raw information could be condensed and a brief, summary format could be achieved (Houser, 2016).
3.    18 healthy students from the University of Mainz, not having any psychiatric disorder, took part in the study, reported non-medical use of illicit stimulants. The condition was relevant for academic performance enhancement purposes.

Findings

1.    Six categories for the life context of use of stimulant for academic enhancement purposeemerged from the study. These were- Context of stimulant. This is used beyond academic performance enhancement. There are also the scope of subjective experience of enhancement, Timing of consumption, Objective academic results, Side effects, Pressure to perform. It was inferred from the study that university students use stimulant drugs not only for cognitive ability enhancement and academic purposes but also for other multifactorial life contexts.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strength- The study highlighted that university students use stimulant drugs for both academic and no academic purposes

Weakness- Participant bias since only healthy individuals were recruited, indicating non-representation of the general student population; spontaneous responses provided that might not be appropriate; no certain conclusion drawn from the study.

Munro, B. A., Weyandt, L. L., Marraccini, M. E., & Oster, D. R. (2017).The relationship between nonmedical use of prescription stimulants, executive functioning and academic outcomes. Addictive Behaviors, 65, 250-257. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2016.08.023

Authorship

1.    The present research paper has been penned down by four researchers whose affiliations and qualifications have not been mentioned in the paper though their expertise have been mentioned.
2.    There was no conflict of interest declared by the authors.

Research aims

1.    The research question that the study wanted to address was “is there any association between nonmedical use of prescription drugs (NMUPS), executive functioning and academic outcomes among college students?” The study aimed at assessing the relationship existing between nonmedical use of prescription stimulants (NMUPS), and executive functioning (EF) and academic outcomes among a population of college students who belonged to five regions of the US. The study considered two hypotheses- Students with EF deficiencies, as measured with Barkley Deficits Executive Functioning Scale (BDEFS), have more chances of demonstrating NMUPS contradictory to those having average EF skills; NMUPS has an altering impact on the relationship between EF and academic performances.
2.    The background of the study was formed by the fact that there was an absence of noteworthy studies that was successful in examining the between NMUPS and EF among the college student population. The studies conducted previously only had indicated the association between EF deficiency and reporting of prescription stimulants.

Design

1.    The study had a quantitative research methodology. The respondents had to complete a demographics questionnaire after which three study measures were considered for extracting data. These were Stimulant Survey Questionnaire (SSQ), Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale (BDEFS for Adults) and Grade Point Average (GPA). For analysing the extracted data, the researchers considered using descriptive statistics. The first hypothesis was tested through independent samples t-test while the second hypothesis was tested using the ANOVA test method. Measurement of effect size was done through Cohen’s ‘d’ method.
2.    The suitability of the quantitative research methodology is to be highlighted in here. Since the purpose of the study was to establish the relationship existing between nonmedical use of prescription stimulants (NMUPS), academic performance and executive functioning the methodology was justified since accurate data collection was possible. In addition, personal biases are less likely to occur with this methodology. Further, quantitative data collection and analysis enables summarisation of vast range of data while fostering comparison of the same across categories (Tappen 2015). However, the correlational study design had the drawback of only establishing the relationship between the variables and not generating a conclusive causal effect (Atanes et al., 2015).
3.    The study respondents were 308 undergraduate students from six different univeristies of United States.

Findings

1.    The study reported about 18% of the sample population highlighting their use of NMUPS. The rate of use was same for male and female. The respondents stated that the primary purpose for NMUPS was academics. Further, they reported knowing others using the same. The hypothesis that students with a considerable level of EF deficit tend to have more chances of taking NMUPS was hence proved.

Strength- A large sample population, was considered

Weakness- Gender bias in sampling as 73.4% of the participants were female; respondents had voluntary participation implying deviation from an accurate representation of the considered population; failure to establish a causal relationship between the variables under scrutiny.

Part B

Barriers for the application of evidence in practice- The present paper is based on a scenario that demands the present critical analysis of the research papers to be conducted for highlighting the relationship between stimulant drugs and acasemic performance enhancement. The case scenario has Wasim, a 29 year old university student attempting to understand the life contexts in which non-prescription stimulant drugs can be used. For this purpose, insights from the research paper is to be referred to. The key insight from the research is that the exact relationship between stimulant drugs and positive change in academic performance has not been established through the research discussed in here. The causal effect of the stimulant drug on academic performances has not been accurately pointed out. The first study of Hildt et al., (2014) was only effective in highlighting that university students take such drugs for academic purposes as well as other purposes. The extent to which these are beneficial has not been discussed suitably under different situations. The second study by Munro et al., (2016) indicated that there exists a relationship between stimulant drug intake, executive functioning and academic performance. It is also to be highlighted in here that the studies had some key limitations, adding to the barriers for application of the evidence in practice. The most significant limitation was the absence of generalisability of the study results. For the first study, the responses generated were not optimal since close-ended questions were considered, restricting the understanding of feelings and perceptions of the participants. For the second study, no causal relationship was established between the variables being studied. Thus, it would not be advisable for Wasim to consider using stimulant drugs for enhancement of academic performances based on the results of these research papers. It is recommended that further research is conducted with studies that are successful in identifying whether stimulant drugs enhance academic performance or not.

Alignment of research studies with the PICO question- The PICO question that was considered for the present paper was “Do stimulants increase academic performance in university students?” The research paper did not achieve much success in addressing the research question as no discreet answer to whether stimulants increase university student’s performance.  

Conclusion

From the above analysis it can be stated that nurses having the ability to reflect on own practice and question current practice are capable of bringing improvement in practice. The present paper was a good opportunity to carry out a critical analysis of research articles and adjudge the suitability of them for application in practice. Gaining knowledge of the application of evidence to real-life scenarios is beneficial for professional practice. The present research was carried out to understand whether stimulant drugs increase academic performance. A critical analysis of the two research papers indicated that these articles were not completely suitable for addressing the research questions. Further research is warranted that would highlight the exact relationship between use of stimulant drugs and academic performances among university students. These studies need to be flawless with appropriate methodology and data collection method. The validity and credibility of such research were to be adjudged critically before applying the insights drawn from the research into practice. For evidence-based nursing practice it is imperative to carry out the comprehensive process of research and its translation into practice.

Reference

Atanes, A. C., Andreoni, S., Hirayama, M. S., Montero-Marin, J., Barros, V. V., Ronzani, T. M., …&Demarzo, M. M. (2015). Mindfulness, perceived stress, and subjective well-being: a correlational study in primary care health professionals. BMC complementary and alternative medicine, 15(1), 303.

Hildt, E., Lieb, K., &Franke, A. G. (2014).Life context of pharmacological academic performance enhancement among university students – a qualitative approach.BMC Medical Ethics, 15(1), 23-23.doi:10.1186/1472-6939-15-23

Houser, J. (2016). Nursing research: Reading, using and creating evidence. Jones & Bartlett Learning. USA.

Munro, B. A., Weyandt, L. L., Marraccini, M. E., & Oster, D. R. (2017).The relationship between nonmedical use of prescription stimulants, executive functioning and academic outcomes.Addictive Behaviors, 65, 250-257. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2016.08.023

Nieswiadomy, R. M., & Bailey, C. (2017). Foundations of nursing research. Pearson. UK.

Tappen, R. M. (2015). Advanced nursing research.Jones & Bartlett Publishers.USA.