How strong is the evidence regarding our holiday Santa Claus (SC) practices? And what are the opportunities on this SC topic for new descriptive, correlation, or experimental research?  Although existing evidence generally supports SC, in the end we may conclude, “the most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see” (Church, as cited in Newseum, n.d.).

If you want to know the answers, check out: Highfield, M.E.F. (2011).  Here comes Santa Claus: What’s the evidence? Advanced Emergency Nursing Journal, 33(4), 354-6. doi: http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.csun.edu/10.1097/TME.0b013e318234ead3   Using bona fide published work, the article shows you how to evaluate the strength of evidence and how to apply it to practice.   You can request a full-text for your personal use from your library or from the author via www.researchgate.net/home .  

Critical thinking: Check out this related research study with fulltext available through PubMed: Black Pete through the eyes of Dutch children
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27322583 ).   Write a follow-up research question based on the findings of this study & post in comments below.

For more info: For those unfamiliar with ResearchGate, it is a site where you can track authors who publish in your area of interest, and you can set up your own profile so that people can track your work.  Take a look.