Assignment: Concept Analysis
Purpose and Process
You will choose a concept for analysis from the list that is provided in the NU601 Moodle site. Each student must select a different concept for their concept analysis assignment. In other words, no concept can be selected by more than one student. The concepts you will choose from are related to nursing practice, education, and/or administration. For example, if you are planning to be a family nurse practitioner, you might choose the concept of family support. In the concept analysis assignment, you will review the literature related to the study of your concept from different disciplines. Doing so will help illuminate the meaning of the concept for you. View it as helping you build the foundation for your nursing research proposal in NU 630, Advanced Nursing Research, and adding to your body of knowledge. For example, a former student, who planned to specialize in women's health, chose the concept of post-partum depression for her concept analysis for an NU601 course. For NU630, she focused her research proposal on the same concept.
Paper Guidelines
1. Introduction: In this section, you inform the reader of the purpose of your paper. Sometimes, students start writing their papers without stating the focus of their paper. In addition, You should also explain what a concept analysis is according to the literature. Then, you should describe why you chose your concept and its application to nursing research and another area in nursing, such as nursing administration, nursing practice, or nursing education.
2. Review of the Literature: This is the main section of your paper where you should identify all uses of the concept. First, you begin with the dictionary and lay sources, then you move to academic literature. You should review the nursing literature related your topic, as well as two other disciplines, such as biology, psychology, or law. The selected literature should mainly be scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles and textbooks. You should provide a brief summary of each of these articles and connect them together as a synthesis. For example, for post-partum depression, you would review the literature in nursing, and two other possible disciplines you would include would be psychology and social work. Generally, references that have been published within the last five years should be used, unless there is a landmark piece of literature (for example, Peplau's theory of interpersonal relationships). Use at least three scholarly articles from each discipline. Write a synthesis of these articles (for example, compare and contrast focus and/or findings). For more information, examine Nursing: How to Write a Literature Review.
3. Defining attributes: From your literature review of uses of the concept (sources such as the dictionary and the thesaurus [lay sources] and academic), you should determine the defining attributes of your concept. In order to accomplish this part of your analysis, it is helpful if for each of your selected sources (academic journal articles, dictionaries, textbooks) that you (1) read through them entirely, (2) highlight or underline the definitions within each of these sources so you can keep track of the various definitions used to define your selected concept, and (3) extract the definitions from across the sources to put together a comprehensive list of the attributes that define your specific concept. Two or three defining attributes may exist for one type of concept, whereas for another concept, there could be seven or eight defining attributes. Do a comprehensive review of the literature within your selected sources prior to deciding on your final list of defining attributes, so you fully capture the "essence" or meaning of your concept.
4. Definition of the Concept: Write a definition that incorporates all the concept's defining attributes. This definition should be written in a one-to-two paragraph narrative.
5. Cases: Ensure your cases fit your designated case types. Also, be sure to provide a rationale for why your case meets that criterion. For example, model case: First describe what a model case is according to the literature, then describe your model case and why it meets that criterion. Be specific. You should follow this method with each of your cases.
a. Model Case:
b. Borderline, Related, Contrary, Illegitimate, and Invented Cases.
6. Antecedents and Consequences: Antecedents are the events/required elements that occur before the concept can happen. Consequences are the events/outcomes that take place after the concept occurs. Antecedents and consequences cannot be the same. They also cannot be the concept itself, but the events/required elements that take place before or after the concept is evident.
7. Empirical Referents: Here, you describe how the concept is measured. Look for two research tools on the concept. Describe the definition of the concept that the researcher used and the purpose and structure of the tool (that is, number of items), and then describe one study where the tool was used including its purpose, sample, method, and main findings. This information can come from your literature review.
8. Summary: Summarize your paper and do not provide new information. You should not leave the reader in suspense as if there will be a sequel.
9. Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:
1. The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
2. The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
3. Also include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.