Learning evidence-based practice by writing the bachelor's thesis - A prospective cohort study in undergraduate nursing education.

BACKGROUND: Evidence-based practice has been the desirable healthcare standard for decades. To ensure evidence-based healthcare in the future, nursing education curricula must include strategies for teaching evidence-based practice to nursing students. Learning outcomes about evidence-based practice might be incorporated into courses like the bachelor's thesis. AIM: This study investigates whether writing a bachelor's thesis influences nursing students' practice, skills, and attitudes towards evidence-based practice, and explores whether there are differences between students writing the thesis as a literature study and students conducting empirical studies. DESIGN: This Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study collects data on students' practice, skills, and attitudes towards evidence-based practice through the Student Evidence-Based Practice Questionnaire and two questions from the Norwegian version of the Evidence-Based Practice profile questionnaire. PARTICIPANTS: The sample consists of 314 nursing students writing their bachelor's thesis in the last term of their nursing education. The responding students represent all institutions of higher education in Norway. METHODS: Paired t-tests were used to examine changes in the subscales practice, retrieving/reviewing, sharing/applying, attitudes and total scale for the Student Evidence-Based Practice Questionnaire from before they started to submission of the bachelor's thesis. Linear multiple regression analyses were conducted to explore differences between students writing a literature study and students conducting empirical studies. RESULTS: The analysis showed that the nursing students significantly increased in the three subscales practice, retrieving/reviewing, and sharing/applying, in addition to the total scale for the questionnaire, while writing the bachelor's thesis. Further, the analysis showed no difference on the scales between the groups of students writing a literature study or conducting an empirical study. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that writing the bachelor's thesis leads to increased learning about evidence-based practice and does not depend on the kind of thesis the students write.

Supervising Undergraduate Nursing Students on Their Bachelor's Thesis. A Qualitative Study.

Introduction: The bachelor's thesis (BT) in undergraduate education is often an autonomous and individual assignment. It aims to demonstrate knowledge gained through education, to be an assessment tool, and to give new learning outcomes through working on the thesis. The process of working with the BT most often includes individual supervision. There is an absence of support for teachers supervising undergraduate nursing theses, which includes a lack of national or institutional guidelines, role definitions and research material. Objective: Given the lack of helpful guidelines, this study aims to explore what the teachers emphasize as important regarding their supervision of nursing students writing their BT. Methods: The study has a qualitative approach, featuring individual semi-structured interviews with nursing teachers supervising nursing students on the BT. Reflexive thematic analysis is used as the method of analysis. Results: The analyses resulted in two generated themes, each with two subthemes, describing the patterns the teachers emphasize as important aspects of their supervision of nursing students writing their BT. The themes were "The pedagogical approach to the supervision" and "The advantages of the bachelor's thesis to the nursing profession." Conclusions: The teachers balanced different roles in the supervision of the students. They wanted the students to grow through challenging them, grounded in a relationship of trust and confidence. They were role models for how to be critical thinkers and incorporated critical thinking as a pedagogical implement in supervision, wanting to raise the students to become nurses who think critically. The teachers sought to combine clinical relevance with academic literacy to secure a new generation of nurses able to be a part of the future development of the profession. They wanted to equip the students with knowledge, skills, and confidence to speak up and communicate nursing. Last, the teachers combined their clinical and academic identities in the supervision of the BT.

Undergraduate Nursing Students' Experiences of Conducting Clinical Research Projects in Their Bachelor Theses - a Qualitative Study.

Introduction: The aim of educational institutions in the field of nursing is to educate nurses with the competences to provide high-quality care to their patients, meaning that students need to learn about evidence-based practice and how to translate the knowledge, skills, competency, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours into daily practice. The bachelor thesis is the ultimate test for undergraduate nursing students to present what they have learned. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore undergraduate nursing students' experiences of conducting clinical projects in their bachelor theses. Methods: We used qualitative focus-group interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the students' experiences of conducting clinical projects in their bachelor theses as an approach to learn about evidence-based practice. The analyses focused on meaning according to Brinkmann and Kvale. Results: Eighteen out of 22 eligible students who had chosen to participate in ongoing clinical research projects and write an academic paper as their bachelor thesis were included in this study. The students were all females and divided into three focus groups. The clinical projects were conducted in a public hospital, a private hospital, nursing homes, or within home-care nursing. The analyses showed that conducting clinical projects in the bachelor thesis provided the students with important knowledge for providing evidence-based care and it. motivated them to want to initiate future clinical projects as nurses., They got valuable hands-on experience for how to conduct research, and made the students aware of the importance of keeping themselves updated on the latest knowledge. Conclusion: Conducting clinical research projects on a bachelor level provide undergraduate nursing students with important knowledge of how to provide evidence-based nursing care to their patients. Learning how to conduct clinical research projects is also important for motivating future nurses to initiate research aiming to improve clinical nursing practice.