NUR 675 Module 2 Objectives Paper Example

Writing Practicum Objectives a Preceptor Can Assess: From Activities to Advanced-Level Outcomes

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

NUR 675: MSN Seminar: Preparation for Practicum

Module Two Objectives Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Writing Practicum Objectives a Preceptor Can Assess: From Activities to Advanced-Level Outcomes

Practicum objectives do more than satisfy a form. They tell the student what to aim for, tell the preceptor what to observe and give faculty a basis for judging whether the practicum achieved its purpose. Many first drafts fail on all three counts because they describe activities rather than outcomes. The student in this paper, a medical-surgical charge nurse at a composite hospital preparing a quality and leadership practicum focused on inpatient falls, wrote five first-draft objectives, including attend the unit falls committee, learn about quality improvement and shadow the nurse manager. When she shared them with her prospective preceptor, the quality director, he asked a simple question: at the end of the practicum, how would either of us know whether you had met them? This paper rewrites the objectives. It argues that objectives written to be specific and measurable, at the cognitive level expected of graduate students and aligned with advanced competencies, turn the practicum into a demonstration of learning.

Criteria for a Good Objective

The SMART acronym, first proposed for management objectives in the early 1980s, asks for objectives that are specific and measurable, have an owner or are attainable, stay realistic and carry a deadline, and it has since been adapted widely in health care and education. Bjerke and Renger (2017) cautioned that SMART objectives are often written mechanically, meeting the letters of the acronym while missing the point, and argued that objectives should grow from a clear understanding of the problem and its causes, so that achieving them actually moves the work forward. For practicum objectives, the most important criteria are specificity and measurability, tied to the problem the practicum addresses. An objective that begins with learn about or understand meets neither criterion, because learning and understanding cannot be observed directly. An objective that names a product or a performance, such as a completed analysis or a presentation to a committee, can be judged by the preceptor.

Setting the Right Level

Measurable objectives can still be pitched too low. Krathwohl (2002) summarized the revised version of Bloom's framework, which orders six thinking processes from simple recall up through application and analysis to judgment and invention, and in which the process is separated from the kind of knowledge involved. Entry-level practice often requires applying known procedures. Graduate practicum objectives should emphasize the higher processes: analyzing a problem with data, evaluating evidence and options and creating a plan, tool or intervention. Choosing verbs from these levels, such as analyze, compare, evaluate, design and develop, signals the depth expected and shapes what the student will actually do.

The objectives must also align with the competencies the program is responsible for. The 2021 AACN Essentials describe advanced-level sub-competencies for graduate education in domains such as informatics and interprofessional partnership as well as quality and safety (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2021). Mapping each objective to a domain helps ensure that the practicum builds the competencies the degree claims.

Rewriting the Objectives

Table 1 shows each first draft beside its revision. The revisions share features. Each begins with a verb from the higher levels of the taxonomy. Each names a product or performance the preceptor can review, such as an analysis, a recommendation paper or a presentation. Each includes a deadline within the practicum and is realistic within the available hours. And each connects to a domain of the Essentials, so that the set spans three domains rather than repeating one.

Table 1. First-Draft and Revised Practicum Objectives

Note. Each revision names an observable product or performance, a deadline and a level of thinking appropriate to graduate practice.

Testing the Revisions With the Preceptor

The student reviewed the revised objectives with her preceptor before submitting them. He suggested narrowing the second objective from five strategies to three, since evaluating five would exceed her available hours, and adding a deadline to the fourth. He also asked that each objective include what evidence he would review, which led to the last column of the table. This conversation turned the objectives into a shared agreement about what the practicum would produce and how both would judge success, which is their most important function.

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Three pitfalls appear often in practicum objectives. The first is objectives that depend on others' decisions, such as implement a new fall policy, which the student cannot guarantee; the revision instead commits to designing and testing a change and recommending next steps. The second is objectives so numerous that none can be done well; five focused objectives are more achievable than ten scattered ones. The third is objectives that describe what the student already does in her staff role, which would not demonstrate new learning; each revision requires work outside her usual charge nurse duties.

Conclusion

The first-draft objectives described a busy practicum but could not show learning. Applying SMART criteria thoughtfully made them specific, measurable and time-bound, the revised taxonomy lifted them to the analyzing, evaluating and creating levels expected in graduate practice and the Essentials anchored them to advanced competencies. Reviewed with the preceptor and paired with evidence, the revised objectives give student, preceptor and faculty a shared basis for judging what the practicum accomplished.

References

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2021). The essentials: Core competencies for professional nursing education. https://www.aacnnursing.org/essentials

Bjerke, M. B., & Renger, R. (2017). Being smart about writing SMART objectives. Evaluation and Program Planning, 61, 125-127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2016.12.009

Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom's taxonomy: An overview. Theory Into Practice, 41(4), 212-218. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2