Unit Code: NURS12165
Unit Title: Evidence to Inform Nursing Practice
Assessment Three
Type: Written Assessment
Due date: Week 11: Wednesday, 28 May 2025 at 1600 (AEST)
Extensions: Available as per policy
Return date: Results for this assessment will be made available on Wednesday, 18 June 2025
Weighting: 50%
Length: 1,500 words +/- 10% (excluding reference list)
Learning Outcomes Assessed
- Employ a systematic approach to locating evidence to address a specific clinical situation.
- Appraise evidence and use critical thinking skills when applying evidence in clinical contexts.
- Reflect on the purpose of evidence in practice and explain why clinical decision making should be based on the best available evidence.
Aim
The aim of this assessment is for you to:
- Assess the credibility of research evidence by creating annotated bibliographies.
- Extract and analyse the relevant information from the literature to answer a clinical question.
- Reflect on why it is important to use credible resources to guide your clinical practice. The information required to undertake this assessment is covered in Weeks 1 to 10.
Please continue to use the same scenario that you used in Assessment One. The scenarios are provided below.
Scenario 1: Oral hygiene in patients with altered levels of consciousness
As a registered nurse working in a medical ward, you notice that one of your nursing colleagues does not provide regular oral hygiene to Mr. Baati, a 78-year-old male who is being fed via a nasogastric tube as he has a decreased level of consciousness due to a recent haemorrhagic stroke. You ask your colleague why they are not providing regular oral hygiene, and they reply that: “it isn’t as important as he’s not eating anyway”. You have always thought regular oral hygiene was important for ALL patients, regardless of their clinical status. Your task is to find credible evidence to provide evidence-informed advice to your colleague regarding this issue.
Scenario 2: Diet and mental health
You were recently at a nursing conference, and one of the speakers discussed the importance of diet and mental health. You would like to know more about this and wonder what the evidence behind this is. Your task is to find credible, evidence-based information on the effects of diet on mental health.
Instructions
Please follow the steps below to complete your assessment tasks:
Task 1: Appraisal of the credibility of the four (4) peer-reviewed journal articles that you identified for Assessment One. Please note: If the marker indicated that your Assessment 1 article/s was/were not suitable, you are allowed to select other, more suitable articles for Task 1. This section is worth 60 marks, with each annotated bibliography worth 15 marks. The word limit for Task 1 is 800 ± 10% words, that is, 200 words per annotated bibliography.
- Place the reference for the article above each annotated bibliography using the American Psychological Association (APA) 7th edition referencing style.
- Using the five (5) components of academic credibility (ARCOC – Authority, Relevance, Coverage, Objectivity, and Currency), undertake an appraisal of these four (4) articles. This is known as an annotated bibliography. A separate annotated bibliography must be written for each article. Each annotated bibliography must explain why your selected articles are credible to answer the clinical question. The words Authority, Relevance, Coverage, Objectivity, and Currency must appear in each annotated bibliography.
Task 2: Summarise and analyse the evidence (500 ± 10% words). Using the resources you located during your Assessment One literature search, extract the relevant information and write a short analytical response to answer your research question. Please include in-text citations. You should include more than the four articles used in Task 1, the annotated bibliography. Credible resources that you may use include peer-reviewed journal articles, textbooks, and credible websites such as peak body or government websites (20 marks).
Task 3: Reflection (200 words ±10%). Write a reflection on why it is important to use credible resources to inform nursing practice. You may use in-text citations in this reflection (10 marks).
Literature and references
In this assessment, use at least six (6) contemporary references (7 years old or less), including the four (4) that you used in the annotated bibliography, to support your discussion. You may also use seminal scholarly literature where relevant. Suitable references include peer-reviewed journal articles as well as textbooks, and credible websites. Grey literature sourced from the internet must be from reputable websites such as from government, university, or peak national bodies: for example, the Australian College of Nursing, the Australian Association of Social Workers, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Note that websites such as StatPearls, Life in the Fastlane, and Wikipedia are not suitable for this assessment task. Lecture notes are not primary sources of evidence and should not be used in this assessment. All resources, other than web pages and grey literature, must be sourced from the CQUniversity library.
Requirements
- Use a cover page for your assignment that includes the following order:
- Student name
- Student number
- Unit code and name
- Assessment type
- Due date
- In-text word count
- If you have used Gen AI, then state here: For example, Use of Gen AI: Gen AI agent has been used for editing and proofreading this assessment.
- Use a conventional and legible size 12 font, such as Times New Roman, with 2.0 line spacing and 2.54cm page margins (standard pre-set margin in Microsoft Word).
- Include page numbers on the top right side of each page in a header.
- Indent the first line of each paragraph 1.27cm (standard pre-set indent in Microsoft Word).
- For Task 1, list the annotated bibliographies in alphabetical order according to the authors. The annotated bibliography must be written in the third person.
- All resources used in Task 2 must be included in the reference list.
- For the reflective writing task, Task 3, you may write in the first-person perspective (I, me, my).
- An introduction and conclusion are not required for this assessment
- All questions in the Instructions of this assessment must be attempted and clearly answered to pass this assessment task.
- Use formal academic, discipline specific, professional and inclusive language.
- Use Microsoft Word English (Australia) spelling and grammar checker.
- Paraphrase, summarise or quote information acknowledging the original source (referencing) to avoid plagiarism.
- Headings and tables may be used in this assessment.
- Follow academic writing conventions: spell out contractions in full; introduce abbreviations and acronyms; spell out numbers for zero through nine and use numerals for numbers 10 and above.
- All work submitted must be your work.
- Start your reference list on a separate page to the body of your assessment.
- Use the seventh edition American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style. The CQUniversity Academic Learning Centre has an online APA Referencing Style Guide.
- The word count is considered from the first word to the last word of your paper. The word count excludes the reference list but includes in-text references and direct quotations.
