Reference no: EM133545884

Homework: Scholarly Paper

The major homework deliverable for your capstone course is a scholarly paper to be written on a topic related to nursing education. You are to identify an issue, need, gap, or opportunity associated with:

1) Any issue in nursing education at any level (e.g. pre-licensure; post-licensure, graduate);
2) Nursing education as it relates to a selected patient population; or
3) Nursing education as it relates to healthcare administration.

You are to develop a research question on your chosen topic and propose an evidence-based intervention for the identified problem. A thorough investigation of research studies from the literature, evidence-based practice guidelines, and/or models for best practices will support your proposed intervention. You will describe and evaluate potential outcomes for the intervention and the metrics that can potentially be used to measure the outcomes of the proposed intervention. You may choose to complete the intervention and write about actual results if time permits. Should you elect to do this, you must gain prior approval from your professor.

As part of this homework, you will need to choose a healthcare journal for manuscript submission and will follow the author guidelines for the chosen journal. The paper will be developed and submitted to your professor for grading in sections throughout the course. Each section will be reviewed and graded separately; this provides you with continuous formative feedback on the paper throughout the course.

In this homework, you will identify your topic and provide a summary of the scholarly work. Many students start their work with a topic that is much too broad.

For guidance, please refer to this week's reading homework, Chapter 11 in Oermann & Hays: Writing for Publication in Nursing. This chapter discusses the "Writing Process" in depth. When thinking of a focus for the scholarly paper it is important to ask yourself the following questions: What difference will it make as a contribution to the profession of nursing? How will it be a meaningful product that can be utilized by others?"

Background/ Introduction

The background/ introduction provide the reader with a clear sense of why the topic for the scholarly paper was chosen, and includes the following elements:

A. Background knowledge-brief summary of current knowledge of problem being addressed, and characteristics of the organization(s) in which it occurs.

B. Local problem-nature and severity of the problem.

C. Intended improvement - describes the changes and improvements in care processes and patient outcomes of the proposed interventions

D. Study questions-clearly states precisely the primary improvement-related question that the study intervention is designed to answer.

Literature Review

The literature review includes identifying current nursing, medical, and other pertinent journals and textbooks related to your chosen topic. Conducting a literature review includes a search of databases in order to identify information relevant to your topic. Literature searches should be limited to peer-reviewed professional nursing and medical journals, texts, and writings. NOTE: Include in your scholarly paper the databases where you obtained your required 10 articles (ex. CINAHL, PsychInfo, PubMed etc.).

After identifying the articles to be used in your literature review, conduct a critical analysis of each article and summarize the findings. The literature you choose should support your proposed intervention. While there is no page number requirement for the literature search it is typical that this portion of the paper may be around five pages.

Proposed Intervention

In this section, it is important to explain to the reader what you plan to do. What are the decisions you made in designing your proposed intervention? Include any ethical considerations or issues you felt were relevant, the setting in which the intervention will occur, the interventions that were selected and why, and how you plan to implement the intervention. (Please see Chapters 9&10 in Oermann & Hays.)

Proposed Metrics and Outcomes

In this section you will outline the metrics you would use to measure the success of your proposed intervention. Include the source of your metrics (should be from the evidence-based practice literature) and the hypothesized outcomes you anticipate from the intervention. Include risks and both potential positive and negative outcomes.

Discussion/ Implications/ Conclusions

he discussion section of the paper is a place to highlight the successes and the challenges that may be experienced through the process of implementing the proposed intervention and the results of the anticipated and unanticipated outcomes. The paper should end with clear and data-driven conclusions and implications. You should highlight the lessons learned, including next steps for future investigations and challenges to the proposed intervention. Include implications of policy, education, practice, research and/or management as applicable.