Writing a dissertation is not an easy task to be accomplished by most students in nursing. It is a profound level of clinical care, research writing and research design. Nevertheless, when given the right methodology, equipment and practice, you can come up with a dissertation that will not just fulfill the demands of the academic fraternity but will also make a stunning impression on the nursing community at large. Here, we will address 7 major steps to write a high impact nursing dissertation and state down the pitfalls to avoid.
Whichever stage of the process of writing your dissertation you are at, as you write your first draft, or refining your own draft, the points mentioned here will give you both the light, the form and even tips which you can apply practically.
The Value of a Good Nursing Dissertation
A nursing dissertation is not an academic paper, doing a nursing dissertation is an exercise of demonstrating your professional knowledge, experience in the field of research and critical thinking. Nursing research is linked to improvement of patient care, knowledge of policies and improvement of professional practices.
The application of the learned material in the nursing assessment practice will lead to your dissertation being anchored on the practical situations within the healthcare. Your research gains greater importance through a combination of theory and practice to not only your professors but even the community of nurses.
Step 1: Starting with a Relevant and Researchable Topic
The choice of a dissertation topic has formed the basis of your research. A strong topic should be:
- Applicable to the modern nursing practice: Be aware of the problems that affect patient care or the care provision.
- Researchable: It is necessary to make sure that there exists a sufficient amount of literature and information which can be utilized in order to carry out an analysis.
- As per your interests and skills: Your topic passion will make you enthusiastic in the procedure of conducting the research.
Trap to watch out: Decision made on too general or even a general topic. One such occurrence is that patient care in hospitals is too large. Instead make it more local, e.g. The effectiveness of systematic nursing evaluation regimes in improving patient safety in intensive care units.
Hint: Visit such websites as NURSFPX to find the content, dissertation (past) and academic help to narrow down the topic.
Step 2: Complete Literature Review
The literature review indicates that you are not unaware of the literature that is available and the gaps that your dissertation can fill.
The steps that will be used in a good literature review:
- Locate important databases: PubMed, CINAHL and Google Scholar are the important databases when carrying out nursing research.
- Enter certain keywords: The keywords to be typed in include: nursing assessment, patient outcomes and clinical interventions.
- Evaluate critically the sources: The prominent place should be attributed to such sources as the systematic reviews, peer-reviewed articles and reputable journals.
- Organize themes: Group studies based on methodology or discoveries, or the extent to which they fit your research question.
The trap to fall is: to continue with overviews of research without assessing how it is applicable. Literature review is an analytical study review of your work and a rational context of your work..
Step 3: Prepare A Sufficient Research Question and Objectives
A research question will aid you in planning on how you will conduct your research, information that is to be collected and how you analyze a research work. The good research question must be:
- Specific: No restrictions but not so much that your dissertation would not apply.
- Measurable: Helps you to gather and evaluate information.
- Relevant: Adds to the nursing practice and knowledge.
An example of this is, suppose you are researching the assessment of nursing, your research question can be:
The question is: What is the impact of introducing the standardized protocols of the nursing evaluation on the patient outcomes in adult intensive care units?
Trap to avoid: It must be mentioned that you should not head a sequence of research questions that clash with one another and weaken the theme of your study. Should not possess more than a single key question and a number of supportive objectives.
Step 4: select the Relevant Research Methodology
This will be done using the right methodology that will guarantee valid, meaningful and reliable findings. Some of the popular strategies in nursing dissertations are:
- Quantitative research: A research is a research that uses numerical data to establish a hypothesis (patient satisfaction scores, clinical outcome measures).
- Qualitative research: It is a qualitative research that examines the experiences, perceptions and actions based on interviews, focus groups, or case studies.
- Mixed-methods research: It is a kind of research that involves quantitative and qualitative research to give a complete image.
Hint: It is prudent you arrive at a decision that conforms to your research question. An example is the analysis of the effectiveness of the nursing assessment processes that can be contemplated about the mixed-method design, the results of which were quantified and qualitative, and the staff experience was quantified and qualitative.
Trap to avoid: A methodology with which you are unfamiliar should be used. Make sure that you have the resources and competences to gather and process the information in a proper manner.
Step 5: Proposed Data Collection and Analysis
The dissertation is on the collecting and analysing of data. Strategic approach to the strategy ensures the effectiveness and reliability.
Data Collection Tips:
- Surveys and questionnaires: Good to obtain quantitative information on the nurses or patients.
- Interviews and focus groups: This may be used to provide qualitative information about the nursing practice.
- Clinical records and reports: Present the secondary data to conduct a retrospective analysis.
Data Analysis Tips:
- A proper analysis shall be done by using software such as SPSS, NVivo or excel.
- Use relevant tests of statistics, or thematic analysis, depending on your choice of doing it.
- Cross check to get information.
Trap that should be avoided: Over-relevant information or irrelevant information. Get your eyes on the information answering your research question.
Step 6:Write A Structured and Interactive Dissertation
It is very easy to organize a dissertation and present your points in a more convincing way. Standard sections include:
- Title Page: In brief, abstracting and describing your research.
- Abstract: Terrsory description of what you intended to accomplish, how you accomplished it, important conclusions and conclusion.
- Introduction: Gives the background, statement of the problem of the research and details the objectives.
- Literature Review: Provides the existing literature that is available and identifies gaps.
- Methodology: explain your plan of how you are going to do your research, participants, data collection and data analysis.
- Results: provide the result in a comprehensible way using tables, graphs or quotes.
- Discussion: Interpretation of findings, correlates results to literature and comments of implication.
- Conclusion and Recommendations: generalizes the main arguments and provides recommendations about the manner in which the future research can be conducted.
Falling trap: Wordless and monotonous writings. Readability Use short paragraphs, headings and subheadings.
Pro Tip: To introduce the practical examples of your study, provide an example of NURSFPX or a case study to illustrate your practical examples.
Step 7: Proofread, Editing and Getting Feedback
The revision and editing are important elements of a refined dissertation.
Steps to refine your work:
- Fly off and repent: With a new perspective.
- Check the flow: Have it flow In this instance, ensure that all sections of the paper are related to each other.
- Check grammar and spelling: Grammatically, one can use such applications as Grammarly or professional editors.
- Get feedback: Have your writing critiqued, either through your mentors or your peers/professional writing service.
Trap that should be used: Do not use spell check only. Scholarly writing is under human scrutiny and standard.
Potential Pitfalls of Nursing Dissertation That are Stereotypical
- Procrastination: Do not wait until the last minute and then start the research and writing.
- Time management: Lack of Plan research, write and edit.
- Absence of ethics consideration: Approve the studies that are using a patient or sensitive information.
- Reliance on secondary sources: In most cases, primary data must be used so that its credibility will be enhanced.
- Lack of attention to clinical relevance: Do not forget to incriminate the findings to nursing care and practice.
Nursing Research With The Aid of Technology and NURSFPX
The NURSFPX websites are quite good sources of information on the dissertation writing among the nursing students. They provide research tools and mentorship programs, as well as scholarship articles. The effective use of technology may aid in streamlining the literature reviews, data analysis and citation agent.
Besides, teamwork is promoted using online tools, and you can share the drafts with experts, share the draft, and have feedback. The combination of these materials would enable you to have more efficiency, accuracy and effectiveness of your dissertation.
Conclusion
The task of writing a high impact nursing dissertation is not easy but rewarding. All these 7 steps required of you is to ensure that you have an appropriate topic, literature review, research questions, methodology, data collection plan, writing a formatted dissertation and editing the dissertation to tedious levels and you are sure to be a contributing factor to the nursing practice.
Procrastination, lack of proper planning, and lack of concentration on clinical relevancy are some of the pitfalls. Examples of sites to visit to make sure that your research is effective and scholarly in its application could be NURSFPX and use the information provided by the nursing practices of assessment.
The dedication and proper organization and resources that will help you succeed in your academic and professional life can make your nursing dissertation your cornerstone to your future of nursing profession and patient outcomes.
