The Double Study Method in Nursing Research

Abstract

INTRODUCTION In a study on job satisfaction among Alberta nurse educators conducted in June, 1980, two separate aspects of the work situation were investigated: the "Importance" of various job characteristics to overall job satisfaction, and present "Level of Satisfaction" with these same characteristics in the context of the job the respondent is holding. Similar studies among nurse educators in the United States by Marriner and Craigie (1977), and Grandjean et al. (1976) used a single three part questionnaire for each respondent. In each study, the results indicated that the nurse educators investigated tended to be dissatisfied with what they felt was important and satisfied with what they did not feel was important. In commenting on their findings, Marriner and Craigie (1977: 359) reflected that "it may be that people regard as important only those aspects of their job which are so annoyingly unsatisfactory that they cannot be ignored." They also speculated that in applying Maslow's theory to studies of job satisfaction, it would seem logical that unmet needs would be judged to have more importance than needs that are met because they would precede others in human consciousness. Neither research group made reference to their method in interpreting their results. METHODOLOGY Cronback (1958: 354) refers to this type of study as "dyadic" or one in which "the score representing the distance or similarity between two perceptions of the same persons..." is compared. In this instance, the "Importance" and "Level of Satisfaction" of individual respondents is measured on the same instrument. Cronback (1958: 358-359) asserts that a difficulty arises in interpretation of these studies, unless the simple, main effects associated with the perceiver or the object of perception have been given separate consideration: Scores ... derived from the same instrument are not mathematically independent where errors of measurement affecting one element influence the others also, significance tests are spurious and correlations are artifactually raised or lowered ... The goal in experimental design is to make the various observations experimentally independent.