NursingDiscussion postEvidence-based practice

NSG6999 graduate project discussions: a planning guide

Ten weekly discussions that are really one project proposal assembled in public — the PICOT question you post in week 2 constrains every answer you can give from week 3 onwards.

Aug 10, 2026

Editorial process

Last reviewed · August 10, 2026

Written by

Aaron Bishop

MA, Education

assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines

Reviewed by

Dr. Nathan Cole

PhD, Rhetoric & Composition

Argumentation and thesis development

On this page

Interpret the task
Assignment instructions
Deliverables
Proposed outline
Research plan
Reference shortlist
Final review

What is the NSG6999 discussion sequence actually building?

These are ten separate discussion posts and one continuous project. Week 1 asks you to identify a problem, week 2 to state a PICOT question, week 3 to report your search, and from there through appraisal, synthesis, design, measurement, analysis and implementation to a week 10 reflection on the course outcomes. Nothing resets between weeks. That has one large practical consequence: the choice you make in week 1 and the question you commit to in week 2 determine what you can say in every subsequent post, so the effort spent getting those two right pays back eight times over. A vague problem produces an unsearchable PICOT, an unsearchable PICOT produces a thin week 3, and by week 6 you are designing a study to test an intervention you never found evidence for. Treat the whole sequence as a single document written in instalments, and keep one working file so each post can be assembled from it.

The distinction the course cares about most is stated in week 1 and tested repeatedly afterwards: this is an evidence-based practice project to improve outcomes, not research to generate new evidence. The difference is not a formality. An EBP project takes evidence that already exists and applies it in a setting where it is not yet standard; research answers a question the literature has not answered. If you cannot point to a body of evidence supporting the change before you start, you are proposing research. The give-away in weak proposals is a week 1 rationale that says the topic is important rather than that the evidence exists, so answer the brief's actual question — what gave you the idea that evidence exists to support this change — with something concrete you have already seen.

Week 1 also asks for relevance from your perspective, not the literature at this juncture, which is an unusual instruction and worth taking at face value. It wants the clinical observation that started this: what you saw, on which unit, that made the current practice look wrong. Write that plainly. It is the only week where personal knowledge is the requested evidence, and posts that reach for citations here are answering a question that has not been asked yet. The three project types the brief lists are worth reading as a genuine choice rather than as examples: an educational programme, a healthcare policy change, and a clinical protocol for a specific condition are three different kinds of work with different evidence bases, different stakeholders and very different measurement problems in week 7. Pick one deliberately, because drifting between them across the ten weeks is what produces a proposal that cannot be evaluated.

The PICOT instruction in week 2 has a formatting requirement most students under-read: label each segment in parentheses as you write it. That labelling is a self-check as much as a presentation rule, because a question with no identifiable comparison or no time frame will fail it visibly. Two failure modes recur. A background question in PICOT clothing — anything of the form "what are the effects of X" — is not a comparison and cannot guide a search. And an outcome stated as a process rather than a result, such as "improved education", gives you nothing to measure in week 7. The process model you choose in the same post should be one you can actually navigate: the Iowa Model with its feedback loops and decision points, the Johns Hopkins PET sequence, Stetler, Rosswurm and Larrabee, or the clinical scholar model. Say why it fits your setting rather than which one you like.

Weeks 3 to 5 are the search and appraisal sequence, and they reward honesty about failure more than most discussions do. The brief asks directly whether your terms led to useful studies, which MeSH terms you tried, and how you modified an unproductive search — so a post reporting that the first search returned nothing useful and describing the second is a better answer than one implying it worked first time. The same is true of week 4's question about whether rapid critical appraisal was really rapid. Record the levels of evidence you are finding, because that is what determines how strong a recommendation you can make in the proposal, and note that patient preference and clinical expertise are named explicitly in week 5 as evidence to be incorporated rather than as a courtesy.

The later weeks turn the proposal into something operable, and this is where posts become general again. Week 7 wants to know whether valid and reliable tools exist or whether you must build and pilot your own; week 8 wants a timeline, a statistical approach and a costing that includes hidden costs such as staff time as a share of salary; week 9 wants stakeholders identified by role rather than name, named barriers with strategies, and a change theory. Choose the change theory the way you chose the process model, on fit: Kotter's eight steps and Lewin's three stages dominate the healthcare implementation literature, and the review evidence treats them as flexible frameworks rather than prescriptions. Remember throughout that the project is not implemented in this course and no data is collected, so every one of these answers is a plan you must defend rather than a result you can report.

Likely learning objectives

Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.

01
Distinguish an evidence-based practice project from a research study by the state of the existing evidence.
02
Write a PICOT question whose outcome is measurable and whose comparison is real.
03
Report a search as an iterative process, including what failed.
04
Select a process model and a change theory on the basis of setting fit rather than familiarity.

Assignment instructionsQuoted verbatim

Read the full question

Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.

Assignment NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments Assignment: NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments Melynk and Fineout-Overholt (2011) note that there are seven steps to the evidence-based practice (EBP) process. The first step is to cultivate a spirit of inquiry. To encourage this spirit of inquiry, you are asked in this discussion to: Identify a problem or issue from within your specialty area that you feel needs to be improved upon. The Doctor of Nursing Practice site (http://www.doctorsofnursingpractice.org/resources/dnp-scholarly-projects/) provides many examples of these projects. The list below may help focus your thoughts. Educational program Evidence-based healthcare policy change Evidence-based clinical issue or protocol for specific disease/condition Discuss the relevance of the issue from your perspective (not the literature at this juncture) in relation to your selected advanced role option. What piqued your interest about this issue or problem? How does it relate to your area of specialization? What gave you the idea that evidence exists to support this change? See “note” below. Provide a rationale as to why this will be an evidence-based project to improve outcomes and not generate new evidence (research). Please remember that the project will not be implemented during this course and no data will be collected. The outcome of this course is to complete a project proposal only. Week 2 – Assignment 1 Discussion – NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments Melynk and Fineout-Overholt (2011) note that there are seven steps to the evidence-based practice (EBP) process. The first step is to cultivate a spirit of inquiry. To encourage this spirit of inquiry, you are asked in this discussion to: Briefly describe the problem or issue that you have decided to be the topic for your project proposal in order to orient your classmates and faculty Indicate how it relates to your area of specialization State your PICOT question. Indicate in parentheses after each segment, what part of PICOT the preceding words represent. For example: In patients recently discharged from the hospital following care for heart failure (P), do hand-off calls by the nurse to the primary care provider using the SBAR format (situation, background, assessment, recommendation) (I) compared to no calls (C) decrease readmission rates (O) over a one year period (T). Discuss which process model resonates with you and will help keep you focused during the project. Process models included in your text (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2011) are: Clinical scholar model Stetler model of evidence-based practice Iowa model of evidence-based practice to promote quality care Model for evidence-based practice change by Rosswurm and Larrabee Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice (JHNEBP) Model Provide feedback to your classmates that focuses on: The use of correct PICOT format for the question to guide the literature search. Does the question reflect a clinical research question or one appropriate for an evidence-based practice project? Week 3 – Assignment 1 Discussion – NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments In this discussion, you will share your search strategies that you have employed to find evidence for your study. For this discussion: State your PICOT question. Did using the terms used in this question lead you to useful research studies? What MESH terms have you tried? Did they help you find additional studies? Are you finding MESH terms useful to expand or delimit your search? Are you finding relevant articles? If not, how did you modify your search to increase productivity? Indicate which databases you used—those you found useful and those that were not. What levels of evidence do the studies you are finding represent? Post any questions or concerns you may have and provide feedback and recommendations to your classmates. Working together and sharing search strategies is very helpful. Use the Search Tracker to keep track of search terms. Using the appropriate Rapid Clinical Appraisal (RCA) Tools, appraise one or two articles and add the information to your Evaluation Table to receive feedback from faculty. At this juncture, your table is a work in progress. You will complete it in Week 4. The RCA Tools and Evaluation Table in Word for you to complete can be found in the Week 3 Overview section. Week 4 – Assignment 1 Discussion – NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments Discuss your experience completing the rapid critical appraisal process. Assignment NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments Was it really “rapid” or was it more of a laborious process? Did reading the abstract help you make quick decisions about including or excluding the study? What worked best for you in terms of the approach you decided to use to complete the appraisal and Evaluation Table? What didn’t work? Post any questions or concerns you may have and provide feedback and recommendations to your classmates. Working together and sharing search strategies is very helpful. Week 5 – Assignment 1 Discussion – NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments This week the discussion focuses on creating a Synthesis Table(s) as a means to summarize and organize the body of evidence from the Evaluation Table. The Synthesis tables will be included in your formal proposal in the Appendix. In the body of the paper, you will describe the “keeper” studies in narrative format. For this discussion, include the following: Share your approach to synthesizing the evidence. What were the variables of interest you identified? Learning to write in a scholarly fashion requires that you are able to succinctly summarize an article in a sentence or two and cite it appropriately using APA format. In this discussion, practice summarizing 2 articles you have identified from the Synthesis Table as pertinent to your proposal. Include the level of evidence, study design, and evidence of rigor. Use appropriate APA citation in text and references. Incorporate feedback from peers and faculty in your Dropbox assignment for this week. In addition to research studies, patient preference and clinical expertise should also be considered. Discuss how you will incorporate these important perspectives into your project proposal. Week 6 – Assignment 1 Discussion – NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments For this week’s discussion, please address the following: Briefly describe the clinical issue or problem for your project, the setting, and population of interest to orient classmates and faculty Write your clinical question Describe the intervention you plan to test What type of study will you conduct? Will it be experimental? Quasi-experimental? Provide a rationale for your answer. Provide feedback on the clinical questions of your colleagues Week 7 – Assignment 1 Discussion – NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments This discussion will focus on the measurement tools you will use to evaluate change from the intervention. The purpose of this discussion is to fine-tune your thinking about evaluation by receiving feedback from colleagues and faculty. Include in your discussion: Write a brief description of your project that starts by stating your clinical question and succinctly explaining your planned intervention in order to orient everyone. Will you need to develop your own evaluation tools or are valid and reliable tools available? If you create your own tools, what are your thoughts on pilot testing them? How will you go about this? Will you gather baseline data? Will you use pre- and posttests? How will you measure change? How will you identify the participants for your study? How does the sampling method chosen further define the type of study you will be doing? How will you ensure confidentiality of study participants? Week 8 – Assignment 1 Discussion – NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments The discussion for this week will revolve around the analysis phase of your project. Include the following points in your discussion: Begin with a brief description of your project that includes your clinical question, your planned intervention, the type of study you will conduct and how you plan to evaluate the outcomes. What type of statistical analysis will be done? What is a reasonable timeline for your project? What expenses should be considered? Include both obvious expenses, such as materials, as well as those that are hidden, such as time, which equates to part of your salary. Will you need to consider a funding source for your project? Week 9 – Assignment 1 Discussion – NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments Although you will not implement your project during this course, it is important that you understand the various steps that are necessary to do so. As you begin to formulate your strategic plan for implementing your change project, discuss the following specific to your proposed project: Who are the stakeholders? Please identify them by role or job within the organization, not by name. Can you identify any “champions” or people within your organization that you can convert to champions? What potential barriers do you foresee and what strategies do you envision to prevent or overcome these barriers? What change theory will you use to guide you? Week 10 – Assignment 1 Discussion – NSG6999 Nursing Graduate Project Discussion Assignments For this discussion question, you are asked to review the student learning outcomes for this course and discuss how you met these outcomes. The intention here is to provide you an opportunity to “reflect” on the learning achieved during this term and how you successfully met these learning outcomes. If you do not feel you successfully met the objective, discuss your plans to successfully complete the objective in the future. By the end of the course, the student should be able to: Demonstrate synthesis of the knowledge and skills acquired in preceding graduate nursing core and specialty curriculum content. Evaluate current health policy and legal and ethical considerations in addressing the health promotion and disease prevention of a target population. Integrate this synthesis in the creation of a scholarly project of either an evidenced-based practice proposal or a research proposal that generates new nursing knowledge. NSG6999 Graduate Project in Nursing Discussion Essay Assignments. Disseminate significant components of the project through a written paper and oral presentation.

What each week's post has to contain

01
Week 1: a problem from your specialty, its relevance from your own perspective, and a rationale for why this is an EBP project rather than research.
02
Week 2: the problem restated for classmates, a PICOT question with each segment labelled in parentheses, and a process model with reasons.
03
Week 3: search terms, MeSH terms, databases used and rejected, relevance of results, levels of evidence, and use of the Search Tracker.
04
Week 4: an account of the rapid critical appraisal process and what worked in completing the Evaluation Table.
05
Week 5: your synthesis approach and variables of interest, two one-sentence article summaries in APA, and how patient preference and clinical expertise will be incorporated.
06
Week 6: clinical issue, setting, population, clinical question, planned intervention, and study type with rationale.
07
Week 7: measurement tools, pilot testing if self-developed, baseline and pre/post design, sampling method, and confidentiality.
08
Week 8: statistical analysis, timeline, obvious and hidden expenses, and funding needs.
09
Week 9: stakeholders by role, potential champions, barriers with strategies, and a change theory.
10
Week 10: a reflection on how you met the four stated student learning outcomes.
11
Peer feedback where each week specifies it, particularly on PICOT format and clinical questions.

From problem to PICOT to implementation plan

Weeks 1–2: problem, PICOT and process model

Fix a problem for which evidence already exists, convert it into a labelled PICOT question, and choose a process model that fits the setting.

Weeks 3–4: search strategy and rapid critical appraisal

Report terms, MeSH headings, databases and levels of evidence, and describe the appraisal process honestly including what was slow.

Weeks 5–6: synthesis, intervention and design

Set out synthesis variables, summarise articles concisely in APA, and specify the intervention and study type with a rationale.

Weeks 7–10: measurement, analysis, implementation and reflection

Choose or build evaluation tools, plan analysis, timeline and costs, map stakeholders and barriers to a change theory, then reflect against the course outcomes.

Searching, appraising and tracking the evidence

Recommended databases

CINAHL
PubMed and MEDLINE via MeSH
Cochrane Library
The Doctors of Nursing Practice scholarly projects repository

Search sequence

1.
Browse completed DNP scholarly projects first, as the brief suggests, to see what a feasible EBP project looks like at this scale before choosing your own.
2.
Search the MeSH browser for your population and intervention terms and note the entry terms; keyword-only searching is the usual reason a week 3 post reports poor results.
3.
Search for a systematic review or guideline before individual studies, because finding one settles the EBP-versus-research question immediately.
4.
Keep the Search Tracker from the first search rather than reconstructing it, since weeks 3 and 5 both ask you to report on the process.
5.
For week 7, search for existing validated instruments by outcome name before assuming you need to build a tool; building and piloting one is a large amount of unnecessary work if a validated tool exists.

Models, tools and change frameworks to cite

These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.

Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.

01
The Iowa Model Revised: Evidence-Based Practice to Promote Excellence in Health Care©
University of Iowa Health Care · 2017
The revised model diagram and permission process, with its decision points and feedback loops. Use it for the week 2 process model choice; the page gives the framework, so cite the 2017 Worldviews validation article for the evidence that it works.
02
Medical Subject Headings - Home Page
National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health · 2026
The MeSH browser and vocabulary the week 3 discussion asks about directly. Look your concepts up here before searching, and report the headings you used and their entry terms rather than only your keywords.
03
Where Do Models for Change Management, Improvement and Implementation Meet? A Systematic Review of the Applications of Change Management Models in Healthcare
Journal of Healthcare Leadership · 2021
Thirty-eight studies across ten countries, with Kotter applied in nineteen and Lewin in eleven, and the conclusion that these models work as flexible frameworks rather than prescriptions. The evidence base for the week 9 change theory choice.
04
A guided search: Formulating a PICOT from assigned areas of inquiry
Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, via PubMed · 2022
On using a PICOT template to produce searchable questions, written for students working at this exact stage. Useful for week 2; the abstract carries the argument, and your library will have the full text if you need the template itself.

Before each post goes up

Common mistakes

Choosing a week 1 problem for which no supporting evidence exists, which turns the proposal into research the course does not want.
Answering the week 1 relevance question with citations when the brief explicitly asks for your own perspective at that stage.
Writing a PICOT question with no comparison, which cannot guide a literature search.
Stating an outcome as a process — more education, better awareness — leaving nothing measurable for week 7.
Omitting the parenthetical PICOT labels the brief requires.
Reporting the search as though it succeeded immediately, when the brief asks how you modified an unproductive one.
Treating patient preference and clinical expertise as an afterthought when week 5 names them as evidence.
Costing the project with materials only, when week 8 asks explicitly for hidden costs such as staff time.
Naming stakeholders by name when week 9 asks for roles.
Writing later posts as though the project will be implemented, when the course produces a proposal only.

Submission checklist

The week 1 rationale names actual evidence you have seen, not the importance of the topic.
Each PICOT segment is labelled in parentheses.
The outcome in the PICOT is something a tool could measure.
The process model choice is justified by setting, not preference.
MeSH terms are reported separately from keyword terms.
Databases that were unproductive are named as well as those that worked.
Levels of evidence are stated for the studies found.
Week 5 summaries are one to two sentences each with correct APA citation.
The costing includes staff time as a share of salary.
Stakeholders appear by role, with at least one potential champion identified.
A named change theory guides the week 9 implementation plan.
The week 10 reflection addresses all four stated learning outcomes.

Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read our academic-integrity policy.