Background

One important expectation of doctorally prepared nurse leaders is the ability to write effectively in a variety of situations. Doctoral students, however, do not traditionally receive formal instruction or practice in scholarly writing, except for writing done in coursework assignments and their dissertation. To begin addressing this problem, faculty in the School of Nursing at George Mason University have integrated specific types of collaborative “real world” scholarly writing into courses in the PhD in Nursing program.

 <>Scholarship of Writing in Doctoral Studies

Three “real world” projects were developed in 2006 to help doctoral students build skills in the scholarship of writing:

1. A Scholarship of Writing course organized around Boyer’s model of scholarship focused on the Scholarship of Writing for Discovery; Scholarship of Writing for Teaching; Scholarship of Writing for Application; and Scholarship of Writing for Integration. “Real world” projects that were outcomes of this course were manuscripts submitted for publication and a grant proposal submitted for federal funding.
2. A Program Evaluation in Nursing course that engaged students in designing a program evaluation for their doctoral program, consulting with the Director of the Doctoral Program and faculty to identify a feasible and effective program evaluation plan.
3. A Nurse as Educator and Scholar course in which students worked with the Promotion, Tenure, and Reappointment Committee to develop guidelines for promotion of non-tenure track faculty in the School of Nursing.

In completing projects described above, the students not only gained increased confidence and competence in writing for various professional audiences, but identified important outcomes related to leadership that involved collaborative goal-setting, project management, peer mentorship, organizational communication, and enhanced understanding of professional goal attainment.