Assignment Overview

Strong writing skills enable you to create doctoral projects that articulate a purpose. Creating a plan to improve these skills, using selected resources, sets the stage for writing. In this assignment, you will create a writing skills development plan by applying a selected EBP model to address strengths and weaknesses and fulfill the writing goals you have created.

What You Need to Know

Applying Conceptual Models, Theoretical Frameworks, and EBP Models

There is increasing recognition that efforts to change practice with the EBP process should be guided by conceptual models and grounded by theoretical frameworks.

A conceptual model provides an understanding about how a health care challenge will best be explored and addressed, and it offers a logical structure of connected elements that help provide a picture or visual display of how ideas in a study or project relate to one another. Existing conceptual models can be found in the literature, or they can be created by the researcher or the team exploring and addressing the problem. A theoretical framework is derived from an existing theory in the literature that has already been tested and validated by others and is considered a generally accepted theory in scholarly literature. A good way to distinguish between a conceptual model and a theoretical framework is to think of the conceptual model as the floor plan of a house and the theoretical framework as the 3-D image showing the spatial relationships among rooms.

Application of the EPP Model

In the event of a hurricane, tornado, or other natural disaster, immediate activation of the local public health agency (LPHA) emergency preparedness system is crucial. The workforce at the LPHA is essential for locally-driven disaster recovery efforts as they are responsible for coordinating a large number of health services. Each individual employee must perform their job quickly and efficiently. But in the face of an emergency, when stress levels and emotions are running high, how do we know that LPHA employees are able to do their jobs effectively? Perhaps they are overcome with fear and are responding with denial or avoidance. Do employees perceive that they perform their jobs well and that they are effective in helping people? What could the LPHA do to increase employees’ motivation to do their jobs well and improve the effectiveness of disaster response efforts?

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health proposed in 2015 that a behavioral framework, the Extended Parallel Process (EPP) Model, could be used to examine LPHA workers’ disaster recovery perceptions and to implement an evidence-based educational intervention to improve workers’ effectiveness. The model predicts that in the face of a disaster, people will engage in proactive behaviors if they perceive the disaster as a real threat or danger, and if they believe they can perform their tasks effectively to minimize the risk to themselves and others.

The conceptual map created by the researchers illustrates the application of the EPP Model, showing that during periods of perceived threat or danger, when employees feel strongly that they are able to do their jobs well and that their efforts are effective (high level of self-efficacy), they are motivated toward responding quickly and efficiently. With the application of the EPP model in this scenario, it would be appropriate to then identify research evidence to support the implementation of an educational intervention to improve employees’ self-efficacy and effectiveness.

EBP Models

Early in the EBP movement, health care scientists, including many nurse scientists, developed models based on existing theories, experience, evidence, and concepts to organize our thinking about EBP and help us understand how various aspects of EBP work together to improve care and outcomes. These models guide the design and implementation of approaches intended to strengthen evidence-based decision making and help professionals implement an evidence-based change in practice (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2019).

References

Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (2019). Evidence-based practice in nursing and healthcare (4th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer Health.

Walsh, L., Garrity, S., Rutkow, L., Thompson, C. B., Strauss-Riggs, K., Altman, B. A., . . . Barnett, D. J. (2015). Applying a behavioral model framework for disaster recovery research in local public health agencies: A conceptual approach. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 9(4), 403–408. 

APPLYING AN EBP FRAMEWORK TO IMPLEMENT A WRITING DEVELOPMENT PLAN

This assignment focuses on using the EBP process and applying an EBP model or framework to improve your writing skills. Writing that is characterized by strong organization, appropriate use of evidence, scholarly tone, grammatically-sound sentence structure, and correctly-formatted citations and references is of paramount importance in all aspects of your professional role. Excelling in all three of these areas enables you to seamlessly integrate them into aspects of your professional life, including your roles of scholar-practitioner and health care leader. Creating and implementing your own plan to continually develop these skills will set the stage for improvements in your writing so that you communicate accurately and eloquently.

In this assignment, you will choose one of eight EBP models or frameworks that best applies to a PICO(T) question focused on the continued development and improvement of writing skills. You will then create a writing skills development plan by applying the EBP model or framework. Your aim is to facilitate the achievement of two specific writing improvement goals you created when you reflected on and examined feedback received throughout this course from Smarthinking and your instructor.

The following PICOT question will serve as the basis for this assignment:

• For my professional roles of scholar, practitioner and healthcare leader (P), will a writing skills development plan based on a specific EBP model or framework (I) improve my writing skills and facilitate the achievement of my two writing goals (C, O) in the next 3-6 months (T)?

In this PICO(T) question, the population (P) is you and the professional roles you seek to enrich, improve and refine. The writing skills development plan, based on the application of an EBP model of your choice, is the evidence-based intervention (I). The outcomes (O) include improved writing skills, as delineated by two specific writing goals you have identified for yourself from the results of your Writing Self-Assessment and feedback received from Smarthinking and your instructor, which also serve as the baseline or comparison (C). The timeframe (T) should be a realistic, feasible amount of time in which you will monitor and observe demonstrated improvements.

Preparation

Be sure that you’ve completed the Writing Self-Assessment.

Instructions

Create a writing skills development plan.

Plan Format and Length

• Use the APA Style Paper Template [DOCX]. An APA Style Paper Tutorial [DOCX] is also provided to help you in writing and formatting your plan. Be sure to include:
  • Title page and references page. An abstract is not required.
  • A running head on all pages.
  • Appropriate section headings.
  • Add your concept map as an appendix.

Your plan should be 4–5 pages in length, not including the title page and references page.

Assignment Grading

The following requirements correspond to the scoring guide criteria, so be sure to address each point. Read the performance-level descriptions in the scoring guide for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.

• Assess your writing strengths and weaknesses.
  • Use the results from your writing self-assessment and feedback received from Smarthinking and from your instructor via the writing feedback tool, scoring guides, discussions, and any other courseroom communications.
  • What are the implications of your current skill level for writing at the doctoral-level?
• Discuss specific writing development or improvement goals as they relate to each element in a PICO(T) question.
• Create a concept map that illustrates the application of an EBP model or framework to achieve your writing development or improvement goals.
• Identify the implementation strategies and resources needed to carry out a writing skills development plan.
• Support main points, assertions, arguments, or conclusions with relevant and credible evidence.
• Adhere to the rules of grammar, usage, and mechanics.