Alicia Anderson and Dr. Lynn Clark Callister, College of Nursing

Nursing requires critical thinking to provide effective patient care. “The production of clear, accurate, and relevant writing is an essential competency in nursing.” Undergraduate nursing students learn to enhance their writing skills in a nursing research/advanced writing course taken during the program. Those students who do not enjoy writing most likely struggle with writing papers and often do not learn anything from the subject material or gain any critical thinking skills from writing in general. It is hoped through this course, students may gain a greater understanding and appreciation of writing to write effectively without apprehensions.
The College of Nursing will utilize the findings from this research to improve future student experiences in advanced writing. Writing-to-Learn (WTL) has been suggested as an instructional strategy to keep students focused on conceptual learning, rather than the mechanics of writing. The purpose of this study was to identify if advanced writing classes change undergraduate nursing students perceptions about writing and student abilities to write.
To evaluate apprehensions and attitudes toward writing, students completed a pre-survey in the first week of the course and a post-survey during the last week of the course. Permission was gained from Dr. L.A. Schmidt to utilize her Writing-to-Learn Attitude Survey. Following IRB approval and informed consent, students in two undergraduate advanced writing in nursing classes (n=158, 93% female and 7% male) completed the 21-question Writing-to-Learn Attitude Survey (WTL) about their apprehensions towards writing. The survey included various questions on aspects of writing such as, how students feel about their ability to express ideas, their ability to write down ideas clearly, if they like to write or not, and if they feel journaling enhances their ability to write.

My main task was to evaluate the pre and post surveys by entering the data into the SPSS system, and determine by the results whether undergraduate nursing student’s apprehensions changed during the semester on writing and how the course may have affected their ability to critically think. My interpretation work also went towards writing two conference abstracts in hopes to possibly present my research in 2008.

My hypothesis in approaching this project was that students would gain a greater appreciation of writing and develop the critical thinking skills they will need to use throughout their careers. The results did not disappoint me. Among the data, we found significant findings that lead us to believe students in the nursing research/advanced writing course did develop better writing skills and have less apprehension than before.

There was a significant improvement in student perceptions to these questions, “I have a terrible time organizing my ideas in writing” (p = .04) and “Impromptu focused writing in class helps me solve problems or clarify concepts” (p = .037). The question, I feel confident in my ability to express my ideas clearly in writing” approached significance (p = .051). The findings suggest students were able to better organize their ideas in writing and impromptu writing helped students clarify concepts they had not understood before. The question which approached significance, demonstrates students had a more positive feeling towards this question but not enough to be statistically significant.

This research taught me many new skills. I had never performed a real research project before and so I learned how to input the data into a data system as well as learning how to interpret the data. I had taken statistics before, but it had been many years. I was able to work along side my mentor who helped me to understand what the numbers meant to understand the data. This experience will help me in future research projects and will open my door for more opportunities.

Overall, my experience taught me a lot about the process of conducting a proper research project. It was an invaluable learning experience for me. My research will give the faculty at the College of Nursing feedback on how the course is developing critical thinking skills in the students, and by receiving feedback; my research will improve future student experiences in advanced writing. I will graduate April 2008 with a baccalaureate degree in nursing and I plan to be a pediatric nurse. I know there are many opportunities in hospitals all over the nation to perform research, which has numerous possibilities to better people’s lives all over the world.

References

• American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (1998). The essentials of baccalaureate education for professional nursing practice. Washington DC: 45. Author.
• Schmidt, L.A. (2004b). Psychometric Evaluation of the Writing-to-Learn Attitude Survey. Journal of Nursing Education, 43(10), 458-465.