Guidelines for the construction and evaluation of academic reports in nursing studentsPautas para construir y evaluar informes académicos en estudiantes de enfermería

Abstract

© 2015, Editorial Ciencias Medicas. All rights received.Introduction: Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile implemented a program called Writing Across the Curriculum to help students to attain the necessary competencies in reading and writing for a successful performance in the disciplines and in the profession. Objective: to draw up guidelines to write and to evaluate academic reports in nursing students. Methods: for the drafting of guidelines to write and evaluate the academic reports, the following activities were carried out a) literature review, b) analysis of reports written by students c) surveys administered to students, d) semi-structured interview for professors, e) guideline submission and f) validation of the contents of guidelines through expert consultation. Results: the most requested academic reports were literature review, case analysis and letter of opinion. The most common mistakes made by students were related to 11 levels of linguistic analysis. The students were perceived as having little time and many difficulties in writing; they suggested that clear guidelines should be prepared for the report writing, the number of tutorials should be increased and workshops or courses related to writing should be given. As to professors, it was observed that they lacked formal studies in the field of Arts, they took a lot of time to introduce writing in their courses, they lacked common criteria about correction of mistakes and they did not have adequate methodologies to improve writing. Taking the above-mentioned into account, preliminary guidelines were drawn up and then validated by the experts. Conclusions: guidelines for the writing of academic reports should be made on the basis of a text production model including planning, writing and revising. Guidelines for the evaluation of academic reports should consider writing indicators and content indicators and also assess them on an equal footing.