How is a Nursing Capstone Graded?

Nursing capstone is the last test given to students in their final academic year. Writing a capstone, you can either work individually or in a group. You will do literature reviewing, collect data through empirical experiments and analyze the results to develop a solid conclusion. Grading capstone, the instructor awards you marks based on your presentation skills and the document content quality. 

Contents

How is a Nursing Capstone Graded? 1

What are the grading criteria? 1

Oral presentation evaluation 1

Rubric evaluation 1

Bottom line 2

What are the grading criteria?

Nursing schools use different capstone grading criteria. Capstone is awarded the A-C alphabetical grades or pass/ fail. The alphabetical methods include number percentage grouping, which guides the instructor when granting the score. 

Oral presentation evaluation

During oral capstone presentation, the individuals are evaluated according to; 

• Their communication skills (audibility and confidence)
• Preparedness and master of the project
• How they are responding to arising questions
• Ability to complete their presentation with the given time

Rubric evaluation

In addition to presentation evaluation, your capstone document undergoes a rubric marking. Your capstone gets thorough scrutinizing from introduction to conclusion and the points culminated to give the overall score. Read on for an example of a typical capstone rubric evaluation.

• Literature; points are given regarding how the student shows rationale to the background information. Are you relating your topic to the literature? The relationship of your objectives to literature and statement of the problem. You need to show a critical evaluation of available evidence in the literature and form the thesis for your current project.
• Methodology: Which design is the student is using to perform the research? Choose an effective method that supports your project objectives. Explanation of the study design, participants, materials used and the sample size should be clear to get high points. If you’re aiming to get all points in this section, show a vivid description of the study design. This section carries a lot of weight since you prove to your professor that you can carry out scientific research and provide solutions in the medical field.
• Results reporting: writing your capstone, report the study results precisely. The instructor will check if the results given are meeting the study objectives. How did you record the results? Students use figures and tables to report the results. The evaluator will check the accuracy of those visual data representations. 
• Discussion and results interpretation; instructors will evaluate how capstone discussion summarizes the key themes from the research. A winning capstone needs to show a smooth correlation between the key findings and the literature review.  How is the interpretation? The results should provide a solution to the gaps in previous studies.  Add references in discussion citing from the objectives and research outcomes.
• Conclusion, limitation, and recommendation: high scoring capstone requires the writer to give a startling conclusion. Make it short, precise, and reinforcing the outcomes of your study. Include limitations you note from the study design, show why it’s a limitation, and propose future study areas to improve this research’s effectiveness.
• Document formatting: there are points for the general writing skills. Your content quality based on grammar, typos, fonts, and spacing is evaluated. The document structure carries marks as well. Capstone with correct formatting and references earns the student high points.

Bottom line

The nursing capstone grading system depends on your institution’s policies. These policies are available and accessible on the school’s website. Moreover, the instructor presents the evaluation forms to students before they start the capstone.