Nursing Students as Partners: Tailored Workshops for Pathophysiology Writing Skills

Abstract

The academic journey to becoming a registered nurse involves applying pathophysiology to clinical practice. However, the extensive volume of content, coupled with the need for deep conceptual understanding and application, is reported to overwhelm students, especially those with varied prior science education or learning styles, thereby negatively impacting their academic performance in the high stakes’ exam. Students report specific constraints in writing short and long answer questions (SAQs and LAQs), thus warranting a tailored academic intervention.

Hence the aim of this research is to deliver and assess impact of tailored writing workshops in partnership with nursing students.

Science and education academics co-designed two one-hour workshops that were delivered in Week 2 and Week 10 of a 13-week trimester. The first introduced essentials and benefits of notetaking with the help of videos and images of real examples from past students. The second workshop will target strategies to answer SAQs and LAQs, including question analyses, expectations, and real time practice with contextualised questions.

The first workshop was delivered in March with 40 attendees and 68 views of the recording thus far. The second workshop is scheduled in May after which engagement data will be analysed.