Multi-modal Assessment

This JCU snapshot uses a variety of assessment modalities to support authentic and continuous assessment.

The multi-modal assessment tasks engage future nurses and midwives with the language, history and professional context relevant to their contemporary profession.

The intent is to equip nurses with communication skills and language that enables effective, professional interaction with doctors and other health professionals.

Developing this kind of knowledge and skills enables them to effectively advocate for themselves and their patients, drawing on professional standards, evidence-based practice and appropriate use of (non-emotive) language. In this way, assessment is explicitly linked to students’ evolving sense of professional self.

Valid; Fair; Authentic; Continuous; Transparent; Varied methods

The coordinator wanted this subject to be highly authentic and relevant to future nurses and midwives.

The subject introduces the evolution of nursing and midwifery as professional disciplines. Understanding this evolution helps student to examine historical and contemporary professional, political and regulatory influences on the development of the field.

The role of the nurse and midwife within the healthcare team is also explored and students are encouraged to examine their own concept of being a healthcare professional. Evidence-based practice is introduced as a foundation for professional practice.

In doing so the subject builds and extends students’ knowledge and skills to prepare them for future professional situations. There are strong opportunities for students to apply feedback to their performance in subsequent assessment tasks and to reflect on their feedback productively (see Assessment Task 4). Assessment tasks and their rubrics are aligned to learning outcomes.

Students who successfully complete this subject will be able to:

• Examine how events in history have influenced the development of nursing and midwifery.

• Describe the role of the nurse and midwife in the context of the healthcare team.

• Outline the role of professional and statutory authorities in the regulation of the health professions.

• Discuss the concept of evidence-based practice.

• Establish a professional portfolio to support personal and professional development.

1. Concept Map (30%) – to identify the key attributes of an exemplary novice nurse of midwife with meaningful links between professional behaviours and underpinning key attributes. Students create their concept maps and save them as a PDF file. A rubric is provided that is used for marking.

2. Video Presentation (30%) – to articulate thoughts on becoming a nurse/midwife in relation to students’ developing understanding of community-wide expectations of their role – linked to professional codes and standards. 5 minute video.
   
   Students develop their presentations and make them available for marking in YouTube. They are encouraged to make their YouTube videos ‘unlisted’ so that they don’t come up in search results. The students provide a direct link to the video which is pasted into the LearnJCU dropbox directly or via a Word doc. A rubric is provided that is used for marking.

3. Essay (40%) – to provide future nurses and midwives with the opportunity to step back, think and write objectively using the language of the profession. 1500 words. A rubric is provided that is used for marking.

4. Professional Portfolio (non-graded) – the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia requires registered nurses to ‘develop practice through reflection on experiences, knowledge, actions, feelings and beliefs to identify how these shape practice. This task requires students to set up a professional portfolio and contribute a reflective piece derived from feedback provided in Assessment Task 3 (essay). Students are encouraged to use the Rolfe  et al., (2001) Reflective model – What? So what? Now what? They contribute one non-graded, required reflective task based on feedback from their essay.

Nurses need to be able to work effectively as part of a professional healthcare team (with doctors and allied health professionals). Feedback from graduates of nursing degrees suggest that to be effective nurses, you must:

• Have a sound working knowledge of how professional and statutory authorities regulate their actions as nurses.

• Use the language of the profession to advocate for themselves, their professional opinions and their patients.

• Think and communicate objectively, dispassionately and in a non-biased way when interacting with doctors and other allied health professionals.

• Use evidenced-based practice.

• Podcasts/ vodcasts (visual) are used to explain assessment tasks and how to approach them.

• Interactive games, such as Kahoot, are used to provoke engagement with subject content (gets competitive).

• Collaborate sessions are focused on students’ assessment concerns.

• MindMapping software - Students are encouraged to try www.lucidchart.com, www.draw.io or other applications they may find to create their map.

• YouTube - Students use their own phones and to develop their presentations and then upload to YouTube.

• PebblePad - The professional portfolio task requires students to set up an ePortfolio in and contribute a reflective piece.