This paper will present a case for the re-examination of the experimental design for contemporary nursing research. It is an attempt to re-dress the academic 'romance' with the new found orientation towards exploratory descriptive research. To make the case, there is a need to make explicit some of the erroneous assumptions regarding the philosophical origins of the experimental design. By ignoring the contribution of the experimental design, there is the risk of overlooking certain areas of potential nursing knowledge. This is particularly pertinent in the current political climate, where the need to provide cost-effective outcomes is reliant upon the principles of causality and certainty inherent in experimental designs.
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Poole et al. (1996) studied this question.
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