School: Nursing and Midwifery

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    Clinical Reasoning and Research in Practice
  • Unit Code

    NUM3204
  • Year

    2025
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    1
  • Credit Points

    15
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
    Online
  • Unit Coordinator

    Dr Deborah SUNDIN

Description

This unit presents the importance of implementing evidence-based practice and its contribution to quality improvement in health care and nursing and midwifery practice. Using the principles of inquiry-based learning, students will examine research and evidence-based case studies to understand how clinical problems can be addressed through the application of clinical reasoning strategies.

Prerequisite Rule

Students must pass NPU3505 and HPU3505

Only students studying in Bachelor of Science (Nursing) or Bachelor of Science (Nursing)/Bachelor of Science (Midwifery) can enrol in this unit.

Equivalent Rule

Previously coded NUM3612

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Review the different research principles and approaches within health service organisations.
  2. Examine strategies for implementing evidence-based practice into clinical care.
  3. Discuss how evidence can be translated to a specific context considering ethical, legal, and cultural factors.
  4. Employ evidence based and critical thinking skills to decision making in a specific clinical context.
  5. Summarise concepts of evidence-based practice and why nursing and or midwifery clinical decision making is based on the best available evidence.

Unit Content

  1. Research in clinical practice and the contemporary healthcare setting.
  2. Fostering a culture of critical inquiry and critical thinking.
  3. Translating evidence into nursing and midwifery practice.
  4. The role of health care consumers in research processes.
  5. Strategies to locate evidence.
  6. Quality improvement methodologies.
  7. Decision-making in clinical practice.

Learning Experience

ON-CAMPUS

Students will attend on campus classes as well as engage in learning activities through ECU's LMS

JoondalupMount LawleySouth West (Bunbury)
Semester 16 x 2 hour lectureNot OfferedNot Offered
Semester 16 x 2 hour tutorialNot OfferedNot Offered
Semester 26 x 2 hour lectureNot Offered6 x 2 hour lecture
Semester 26 x 2 hour tutorialNot Offered6 x 2 hour tutorial

For more information see the Semester Timetable

ONLINE

Students will engage in learning experiences via ECU’s LMS as well as additional ECU learning technologies

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
TestOnline test20%
PresentationPodcast40%
PosterResearch in clinical practice40%
ONLINE
TypeDescriptionValue
TestOnline test20%
PresentationPodcast40%
PosterResearch in clinical practice40%

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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