The free form database program as a research tool

Philip Burnard

Two types of database programes for the IBM compatible personal computer (PC) are described: the fixed form database and the free form database. The use of the latter in compiling bibliographic databases and in content analysis of interview transcripts is described. Other uses for the free form database program are also discussed. It is suggested that the free form database has advantages over some other custom-made analysis programs in terms of its simplicity and ease of use. It is also suggested that the free form database can be a useful tool for nurse educators and students.

INTRODUCTION

Most nurse educators and many students are required to carry out research either as a means of identifying and satisfying educational needs or as part of a programme of learning leading to a certificate, diploma or degree. Many, too, will be familiar with using IBM compatible computers as part of the research process for storing data, working on analysis or for writing the report (Palmer 8c Pope 1984; Procter 1988; Kowntree 1987). In this paper, the free form database program is described as a tool which can help in at least two aspects of the research cycle: as part of the maintenance of a referenc- ing system and as a tool for analysing qualitative data. Other applications for this type of program are also referred to as they apply to nurse education.

Philip Burnard PhD MSc RMN DipN Cert Ed RNT, Director of Postgraduate Studies, University of Wales College of Medicine, Heath Park, Cardiff CF4 4XN, Wales (Requests for offprints to PB) Manuscript accepted 12 July 1991

Fixed form databases

The more familiar database program for IBM compatible PCs is the fixed form database. There are numerous examples of.these, ranging from dbase to Paradox to PC-File. Some are expensive, large and quite difficult to learn.

Others (such as PC-File) are fairly simple to use, very extensive in their range of operations and available as shareware. Shareware is a system of marketing that appears to be unique to computer software.

With shareware, the user pays a small fee to a company to cover the cost of the disk, the copying of the program and the postage, and in return gets a fully functioning copy of the program. She can then try out the program before deciding whether or not to continue using it. If she does decide to keep the program, then she is asked to pay a registration fee to the writer of the program. This registration fee is nearly always much less than can be paid for standard, commercial packages (Hughes 1991).

The fixed form database requires that the user first makes some decisions about the type of data that is to be stored. For example, the person who

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chooses to store bibliographic references in such a database must first decide how many ‘fields’she will require. A field is part of the screen that will contain specific information. In this example, separate fields will be used to store the following sorts of information: author, year, title and publisher.

Having decided on the sorts of fields that are required, the user must then decide how large each field will be. That is to say, that a decision must be made about the number of characters that will be typed into each of the fields. In the example here, there will be little trouble in deciding that only four characters will be needed for the ‘year’ field. Problems may arise in other fields. For example, how long is the longest title of a book or a journal article likely to be? It is often difficult, prior to using such a database, to decide on how much space to allocate to each field.

The program usually has limits on the numbers of characters that can be placed in any given field. Usually this is quite a limitation: many programs only allow 250 characters to be entered into any field as a maximun. If the user wants to type in ‘notes’ or an ‘abstract’ at the bottom of each bibliographic reference, only 250 characters will be available for this purpose. Note, too, that ‘characters’ refers to single letters or spaces and should not be confused with ‘words’. Figure 1 illustrates an example entry screen from a fixed form database. The broken lines within each ‘field’ represent the number of characters that can be entered. Normally, the field labels (‘field 1’ etc.) would not be shown: they are used here to illustrate the notion of a field.

Despite these limitations, the fixed form data- base has many advantages. It offers a systematic way of filing away information that can be easily retrieved from the computer. Searches can be run on a number of words or phrases. For example, it can be quite possible to search a bibliographic database of many thousands of entries for all of the journal articles written on counselling in psychiatric nursing, by British authors, between 1981 and 1983.

The fixed form database also allows the oper- ator to browse through the data in much the

Fig 1 Example of a screen from a fixed form database

same way as someone might browse through a drawer full of reference cards. Overall, the use of a computerised, fixed form database can do much to increase the efficiency of anyone who needs to keep a bibliographic database. That must include all nurse educators and most students.

The free form database

The fixed form database, as we have seen, imposes certain restrictions on the user. The free form database has few of these. Especially, the free form database allows the operator to enter data in any format from the keyboard and makes no restriction on the number or types of fields. In other words, one database entry may contain three lines of type: another may contain two pages. In fact there is no concept of ‘fields’ with the free form database. The operator merely types in data and decides when an entry is complete.

Figure 2 illustrates a typical screen from a free form database entry, this time with the text already in place. It will be noted from Figure 2 that, because the free form database does not depend on field nor upon fields of particular length, the user is free to write references into it in the standard ‘Harvard’ referencing style (Kirkman & Turk 1989).

With the free form database, it is possible to recall any entry merely by recalling one word or phrase of the text in that entry. Imagine, for example, that the operator has typed in a large entry about a book on midwifery training. She recalls that the entry makes reference to ‘didactic

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Fig 1 Example of a free form database screen

teaching’. To recall the entry to the screen, she uses the program to find the phrase ‘didactic teaching’ and this will be sufficient to recall the entry. Alternatively, she remembers the author of the book: that, too, will be sufficient to find the reference. If all else fails, she can browse through all the entries until she finds the correct one.

The free form database is useful as a method of storing items of data of varying lengths and of different sorts. Anything from addresses, to bibliographic references to quotes from essays can be filed away in this sort of database and readily found again. Examples of this type of database are Memory Mate, Agenda, Info Select and Ask Sam (which may be best known as the program which was used to take down and structure the information relating to the Amer- ican Irangate trial). As with fixed form data-

bases, they range in price from around di30 to as much as f500 per program.

The free form database in research

Two applications of the free form database can be described. The applications described here have both been used by the author in research

projects. The database used in this case was Memory Mate (Fremont 1988), which is available for about 559 and also as shareware (when it is usually called Instant Recall). The shareware version is rather less complete and versatile than the full cost program.

The program is very easy to use, very comprehensive in its documentation. Apart

from its applications in the ways described here, it is also useful for the building of hypertext documents, for storing addresses and telephone numbers, for use as an ‘ideas file’ and so forth.

A hypertext feature also allows the user to read short sections of text and then to switch to other pages for more details of a particular concept (Beard 1991). Consider, for example, the following passage:

Counselling in nursing has been developed in a variety of ways. Some writers describe the role of the nurse-as-counsellor, whilst other writers discuss counselling skills. Both rlerbal and non- verbal skills are involved in counselling.

In a hypertext document, the computer user could stop on any of the italicised words in the above passage, press a button and be taken straight to more details about the topic in ques- tion. The hypertext approach allows for greater freedom and variety in the learning process. The free form database system allows for the development of such a system which has a considerable range of possible applications in the field of nurse education.

References

Perhaps the most immediate application of this sort of database program is as a means of storing bibliographic references. Because of the free form format of the program, no restrictions occur regarding the method or style of entry of the references. Thus, it is quite possible to store away summaries, quotes and notes alongside the details of the author, year, title and publisher.

It is also a simple matter to add to a particular entry at a later date. It becomes possible to develop a very useful and detailed database of references and notes. Further, with the use of the hypertext function, it becomes possible to link together all of the references on a particular topic or to link together various sorts of topics.

An important feature of Memory Mate is that it is a ‘terminate and stay resident’ program. That is to say that it can be called to the screen ‘over’ another program, worked on and then removed from the screen. Such programs are

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sometimes known as ‘pop-up’ programs because no notion of fields through which to search for of their ability to pop up over the ‘regular’ items. Any item that is requested will be searched program that is in use. This increases the pro- for through the whole of each data entry in the gram’s usefulness. It becomes possible, for database. This ensures that any search run is example, whilst working on an essay or paper exhaustive of the whole content of the database. (using a wordprocessing program) to check a This cannot so readily be achieved with a fixed reference whilst writing the paper (from the form database. pop- up database).

It is &so possible to ‘cut and paste’ references from the pop-up database into the main pro- gram. Thus, when a reference list is being compiled at the end of the paper, all of the references can be pulled straight out of the database and placed at the end of the paper. Thus less typing is involved and fewer mistakes are likely to occur. Plus, of course, a considerable amount of time is saved.

Finally, the cut and paste feature can be used in reverse. As a reference is used in an essay, it can be pasted directly into the database for further use at a later date. Paragraphs of information from documents used in the wordprocessor can also be transferred in this

way. For the researcher, the free form approach to

bibliographic storage has other uses. First, it is useful to anyone who is carrying out a meta-ana- lysis of the literature in a particular domain. The meta-analysis is a method of identifying a detailed range of literature and then subjecting it to a form of content analysis, in order to identify the sorts of papers that have been written on a particular topic (Rosenthal 1984). Thus it becomes possible, when doing a meta- analysis of the counselling literature in nursing, to identify the numbers of papers in particular years, the ones that were written about psychia- tric nursing, the one that describe counselling skills and so on. The free form database is particularly useful here. The researcher merely identifies the categories of the analysis (skills, year, theories etc,) and then runs searches through the database using those categories as key&rds. The program will not only identify each occurrence of each keyword but will also identify the number of occurrences. Very quickly, a list of frequencies of occurrences of certain items can be drawn up.

As we noted above, the free form database has

Data anlaysis

The second application for the researcher is the use of the free form database as a tool for content analysis of interview data (Berg 1989; Carney 1982). Here, the interviews are transcribed and entered into the database as single ‘items’. If any item is too large, it can be divided up into manageable chunks, according to the limitations of the program. The transcripts can be readily prepared in any wordprocessor and transferred to the database in the form of ASCII files.

Once the transcripts are in the database, the researcher identifies her categories of search. For example, the person researching attitudes towards dying and who has used the interview method, may want to search through the data for examples of reference to Kubler-Ross’s work (Kubler-Ross 1969). In this case, the name ‘Kubler-Ross’ is used as a keyword and the program searches through all of the data and identified both all of the occurrences of those two words as well as the number of times the words were used. Also, and most importantly, the program allows the researcher to see the use of the name Kubler-Ross in context, within the interview transcript itself. It should be noted, though, that the words Kubler-Ross must con- tain the hyphen if they are to be found. As ever, computers are only logical and concrete - they cannot anticipate mistakes or ‘guess’ at what is required. The development of ‘fuzzy logic’ or the ability for computers to guess in this way is being undertaken at the present time but not yet widely available. The GIG0 (‘garbage in: gar- bage out’) principle still applies (Gosling 1982).

The searchers for keywords in interview trans- cripts are not restricted to one or two words. Strings of words can be searched for. For examples, the researcher may want to find out how often and in what context, the expression

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‘unconditional positive regard’ (Rogers 1967) was used by respondents. Strings of words of this

sort pose no problem. The only restriction, of course, is that the program will only find exact matches for the phrase. Thus, ‘non-conditional regard’ would be missed.

The free form database can quickly allow access to a wide range of approaches to content analysis. Words, phrases, dates, frequencies, repetitions and many more ‘items’ can be quickly and easily accessed. The fact that all of the items remain in context and are viewed as part of the original transcript make validity checks more possible (Burnard & Morrison 1990; Field & Morse 1985).

An alternative, and even tighter, method of analysis involves breaking down each paragraph in interview transcripts and importing each of these into the database as separate items. This is easily done and further ensures that each example of a particular word or phrase is counted effectively.

Overall, the free form database seems to have some specihc advantages over the fixed form version for the nurse educators, student and researcher. Easy data entry in any format, quick searching of all of the items makes this type of program an almost essential one for anyone who uses a IBM compatible computer. Data process- ing for any researcher is an issue that needs careful thought - especially when datasets are large (lnnes 1984). Whilst content analysis and similar forms of analysis can be carried out by hand, it seems reasonable to use the appropriate technology when it is available.

Apart from these programs, there is also purpose built software for analysing research data in nursing, ranging from SPSS/PC, a pro- gram which allows detailed statistical analysis of numerical data (which can, of course, be derived from coded interview data), to The Ethnograph, a large scale ‘cut and paste’ program which allows for the collation of items within pre-speci- fied categories. Whilst the latter is useful in grounded theory type projects (Glaser & Strauss 1967). the former is clearly not so useful in analysing qualitative data. Also, both of these programs need to be learned before they can be used. One of the advantages of the free form

database program is that it is both easy to use and to become accustomed to.

It is quite possible to use both fixed form and the free form database programs. I find it useful to maintain a fixed form database as a cumula- tive bibliographic reference database. I add references to it in the same way that a person may write out a new reference card. This now contains nearly 1000 references of different sorts. It is frequently re-indexed in order to put it in alphabetical order, by author. and it.ems can be searched for on any one or more of the following keywords: author. title, publisher or keyword.

For current research and writing work, I use the free form data base which holds references and notes relating to a number of projects. This means that I can have almost instant access to a range of information ranging from fragments of‘ ideas, to excerpts from papers, to c ontemporar! references. I also find it useful for jotting down notes in much the same way as one might use ‘Post-it’ stickers. as reminders of various sorts.

CONCLUSION

As nursing research develops, and as more and more researchers become computer literate, it is essential that we all look for new ways to harness this technology.Just as research, itself, involves a constant search for finding new ways of explor- ing people and things, so can ‘lateral thinking’ (de Bono 1970) be applied to the ways in which computer software is used. It is easy- to use overly complicated software for fairly straightforward applications - the widespread use of the SPSSI PC program for simple frequemv counts is an example here.

The use of the free form database is one wav in which an elegant program can be used to aid ‘the storage and recall of bibliographical references and in the analysis of qualitative data. The indications are that nursing is going to continue to embrace the use of computer technology (Ball et al 1988; Koch & Rankin 1987). The examples here suggest other ways in which computing can aid in the process of nurse educ;ltion.

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