Designing a rubric for reflection in nursing: a Legitimation Code Theory and systemic functional linguistics-informed framework

Abstract

This paper reports on an interdisciplinary pedagogical research project involving academic literacy experts and lecturers at a School of Nursing. Specifically, the paper focusses on the development of a data-driven analytical rubric to teach and assess critical reflections in year-one nursing. The purpose of the project was to support the teaching and evaluating of critical reflections of nursing students after their initial clinical placement. Rather than focusing on inter-rater reliability or on pedagogical uses of rubrics, this paper is concerned with the ways the criteria that constitute these rubrics were devised. The data involved 200 student assignments, the existing marking criteria and two focus groups with the nursing lecturers. We analysed the data using aspects of a linguistic theory, systemic functional linguistics, and elements of a sociological framework, Legitimation Code Theory, to understand what constitutes ‘deep reflection’ in clinical nursing practice. Our findings led to a revised analytical rubric which makes visible what is highly valued in nursing reflection tasks. We conclude with a data-driven analytical rubric design framework which involves the analysis of student assignments at various levels of achievement to reveal academic literacy and knowledge practices requirements of reflection tasks.

Keywords:

• Nursing reflection tasks
• analytical rubrics
• data driven design
• systemic functional linguistics
• Legitimation Code Theory

Acknowledgements

We thank the nursing educator team at the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies (NUS) for their inspiring work dedication, their unmatched efficiency, their friendship, and support. We also thank the reviewers for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval

NUS-IRB Ref No: S-18-295E.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning under a Teaching Enhancement Grant (TEG AY2018-2020).

Notes on contributors

Laetitia Monbec

Laetitia Monbec is a Lecturer at the Centre for English Language and Communication at the National University of Singapore.

Namala Tilakaratna

Namala Tilakaratna is a Lecturer at the Centre for English Language and Communication at the National University of Singapore.

Mark Brooke

Mark Brooke is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for English Language and Communications at the National University of Singapore.

Siew Tiang Lau

Siew Tiang Lau is an Associate Professor (Education) & Director of Education (PET-Clinical) at the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.

Yah Shih Chan

Yah Shih Chan is a Senior Lecturer at the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.

Vivien Wu

Xi Vivien Wu is an Assistant Professor at the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.