Succeeding in Essays, Exams and OSCEs for Nursing Students

Kay Hutchfield began her nursing career in both orthopaedic nursing and adult nursing before becoming a children′s nurse and later a clinical teacher. She has recently retired after 18 years as a senior lecturer in higher education. She has worked primarily in pre-registration nursing education, and has a keen interest in curriculum development. Kay has been programme director for three pre-registration child nursing programmes, and has developed a keen interest in developing students’ fundamental research skills and managing risk in academic work as well as in care management. Her experience working as a personal tutor and pathway director has provided her with the opportunity to support students undertaking assessments and understand why they perform poorly and well. She has written two books in the Transforming Nursing Practice series. Her first book is designed to help students develop the skills of searching for literature and information/ evidence underpinning practice. Her second book is designed to help students effectively demonstrate the knowledge they have gained in their nursing assessments and achieve their full potential. Dr Mooi Standing is an independent academic nursing consultant with over 40 years’ experience that includes: (i) practising mental health and adult nursing in a range of hospital and community settings; (ii) lecturing pre-registration and post-registration nursing students from certificate to Master’s level and presenting scholarly papers at international nursing conferences; (iii) researching how nurses develop clinical decision-making skills and publishing articles, books and chapters on this topic for nursing students, registered nurses and advanced practitioners; and (iv) providing external consultancy in curriculum development and quality enhancement of nursing programmes both nationally and internationally.Mooi is currently a Series Editor for Learning Matters′ Transforming Nursing Practice book series and has had extensive experience serving as a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Quality Assurance Reviewer of nursing educational programmes, and as a Professional Regulator as a Panellist on the NMC Practice Committee.

This book is all about succeeding and steering nursing students. There are useful activities, examples of good and bad assessments, case studies to show where things can go wrong from the perspective of students and mentors, and some timely advice for working with other students on projects and presentations. I give this book five stars, and would make it six if I could.

• IntroductionAn Introduction to Assessment in Pre-Registration Nursing Programmes - Kay HutchfieldSucceeding in Written Assignments - Kay HutchfieldSucceeding in Practice Assessments - Kay HutchfieldSucceeding in Written Examinations - Mooi StandingSucceeding in Portfolios - Kay HutchfieldSucceeding in Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) - Pam PageSucceeding in Presentations - Kay HutchfieldWhere to Look for Support with Your Assessments - Kay Hutchfield