| Course | CAP 6003 Capstone in Education Specialist |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 3 |
| Paper type | Intervention design |
| Length | 1,320 words, about 5 pages plus title and reference pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | American College of Education |
| Program | Ed.S. in Nursing Education |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for CAP 6003 Module 3
Call Early: Designing a Three-Part Curriculum Thread of Scripted Openings, Two Escalation Scenarios and a Clinical Prompt Card for Third- and Fourth-Semester Nursing Students
Student Name
American College of Education
CAP6003: Capstone in Education Specialist
Module 3 Assignment
Instructor Name
October 26, 2026
Introduction
The problem defined in Module 1 is a pause: students in their final semester see a simulated patient worsening and then let a median of nine minutes pass before they pick up the phone. Module 2 synthesized the research and drew five implications: target the response, give students words, rehearse the decision in simulation, reach the clinical units and measure behavior. This paper designs an intervention named Call Early that follows those implications. It explains the theory behind the design, describes each component, sets the schedule and budget and names the risks that could weaken it.
Theoretical Basis
Two frameworks shape the design. Bandura (1977) traced a person's belief that they can carry out a task to four kinds of experience: having done it successfully, watching others do it, being told they can and the state of their own nerves, and he judged the first of these the strongest. Students who hesitate to call are, in Bandura's terms, short on efficacy expectations for one specific act, so the design gives each student several successful calls rather than more lectures about why calling matters.
In the NLN Jeffries simulation theory, what learners take from a scenario depends on its context and background, on how it is designed, on the experience itself and on what the facilitator does, and its effects can reach learners, patients and whole systems (Jeffries et al., 2015). The theory directs attention to design and facilitation, the parts this program can change, rather than to equipment it already has.
Component 1: The Scripted-Call Workshop
A 90-minute workshop in the third-semester medical-surgical course will teach a structured opening for a call. Students will practice a compressed version of the SBAR report they already know, suited to an urgent call, and a three-rung phrase borrowed from team training that moves from naming a concern, to saying one is uneasy, to declaring a safety problem. They will also meet the two-challenge rule: if a first statement of concern is brushed aside, say it again, and if it is brushed aside twice, go to the next person in authority.
The workshop is mostly practice. In pairs, students will make six short mock calls by phone to faculty playing a hurried hospitalist, an irritated charge nurse and a supportive rapid response nurse. Each call starts from a printed card showing vital signs and one line of history. The goal is that every student says the first sentence of an urgent call aloud at least six times before the first scenario. Faculty will give brief directive feedback after each call.
Component 2: Two Escalation Scenarios
Two scenarios will be revised to make the decision to call the center of the experience. In the third semester, a postoperative patient on the first evening after bowel surgery develops tachycardia and falling urine output from bleeding. In the fourth semester, the existing sepsis scenario stays exactly as it ran in fall 2025, which keeps the two cohorts comparable, but its prebriefing and debriefing will change. Both scenarios will be built to the INACSL simulation design standard, which expects a needs assessment, measurable objectives, prebriefing, a planned debriefing and a pilot test before use (Watts et al., 2021). The measurable objective for both is the same: the student will notify the provider or rapid response team within three minutes of the programmed change, using a structured opening.
Debriefing will use the PEARLS framework, which blends learner self-assessment, focused facilitation and directive teaching within a reaction, description, analysis and summary sequence (Eppich & Cheng, 2015). The analysis phase will always return to the moment the student first noticed the change, with a question such as, "What was going through your mind between noticing and calling?"
Component 3: The Clinical Prompt Card
Clinical instructors will carry a pocket card with two questions to ask each student once per clinical day: "What change in your patient would make you call, and whom would you call?" and "What would you say first?" The back of the card will summarize the escalation routes at each partner hospital, the hospitalist line at one and the rapid response number at both, confirmed with each hospital's nurse educator. Instructors will be asked to praise early calls in post-conference, which adds the verbal persuasion Bandura (1977) described, and to tell students openly that a call that turns out to be unnecessary is still the right call.
Preparing the Faculty
Adjunct instructors and the three faculty who run simulation will attend a one-hour briefing in January. It will cover the problem data, the scripted phrases, the PEARLS question about the moment of hesitation and the prompt card, and it will ask instructors to describe how escalation actually happens on their units. That conversation matters because the instructors know local habits and can say where the script will meet resistance.
Fitting the Design to Students' Lives
Most students in the program work outside school, and several drive more than an hour to campus, so nothing in Call Early adds a trip or an evening. The workshop replaces a lecture hour already on the third-semester calendar, the scenarios use simulation days already scheduled and the prompt card works inside clinical days. Students who need extra rehearsal can book a 15-minute mock-call slot during my office hours, by phone if they cannot come to campus.
The design also has to account for anxiety. Some students freeze in simulation because they feel watched, and a timed objective could make that worse. Prebriefing will state plainly that the scenario is formative, that the timing is measured to improve the program rather than to grade anyone and that a late call will be discussed, not penalized. Bandura (1977) listed emotional arousal among the sources of efficacy expectations, and high arousal tends to undermine performance; a calm prebriefing is part of the intervention, not a courtesy.
Schedule
January 2027: faculty briefing, pilot test of the revised third-semester scenario with four volunteer students. February: workshop for the third-semester cohort and first escalation scenario. March: clinical prompt cards in use in both semesters. April: fourth-semester sepsis scenario with revised prebriefing and debriefing. May: data compiled for the evaluation described in Module 4.
Resources and Cost
The design uses existing laboratory space, manikins and simulation days. New costs are modest: about 30 hours of my release time for revision and pilot testing, one hour of paid time for each of 20 adjuncts at the program's meeting rate, printing for 40 laminated cards and a donated prepaid phone line for the mock calls. The program director has agreed in principle to the adjunct hour, which is the largest new expense at roughly $900.
Risks and How the Design Addresses Them
Three risks stand out. Students may learn to call quickly in simulation without carrying the habit to the units; the prompt card and instructor praise are meant to bridge that gap, and the evaluation will look for clinical evidence. Instructors may apply the card unevenly; a short check-in at midterm will ask how often they used it. Finally, faster calls could become reflexive calls without assessment; the scenario objectives require a structured opening that includes the assessment findings, so speed alone will not meet the objective.
Conclusion
Call Early is a small design aimed at a small, specific gap. It gives students words, rehearses the call until it becomes familiar, puts the choice to call at the center of two scenarios, asks every debriefing to replay the pause before the call and carries the message onto the units through the people who supervise students there. Module 4 will set out how the program will know whether it worked. If it does, the cost of trying it is small enough that a program like this one can afford to keep it running in later years.
References
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191
Eppich, W., & Cheng, A. (2015). Promoting Excellence and Reflective Learning in Simulation (PEARLS): Development and rationale for a blended approach to health care simulation debriefing. Simulation in Healthcare, 10(2), 106-115. https://doi.org/10.1097/SIH.0000000000000072
Jeffries, P. R., Rodgers, B., & Adamson, K. (2015). NLN Jeffries simulation theory: Brief narrative description. Nursing Education Perspectives, 36(5), 292-293. https://doi.org/10.5480/1536-5026-36.5.292
Watts, P. I., McDermott, D. S., Alinier, G., Charnetski, M., Ludlow, J., Horsley, E., Meakim, C., & Nawathe, P. A. (2021). Healthcare simulation standards of best practice: Simulation design. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 58, 14-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecns.2021.08.009
What the CAP 6003 Module 3 instructions ask for
CAP 6003's third module commonly asks you to turn your synthesis into a concrete intervention or action plan. Instructions usually expect the design to be grounded in a theory or framework, described component by component with who, what, when and how, and linked explicitly to the research you gathered in Module 2. Many instructors also want a schedule, the resources required and a frank look at what could go wrong. Write the design so that a colleague could deliver it from your paper alone. Keep it within your own authority and your program's real constraints, and state the measurable objective each component serves so that Module 4 can evaluate it.
How this CAP 6003 Module 3 example is built
Opening with a recap of the problem and the five implications from Module 2, the paper names the intervention and states what follows. A theory section uses Bandura's sources of efficacy to justify repeated successful calls and the Jeffries theory to focus on design and facilitation. Three components follow: a workshop built mostly of mock phone calls, two scenarios revised to the INACSL design standard with a timed objective and PEARLS debriefing, and a prompt card for clinical instructors. Faculty preparation, a month-by-month schedule and a cost estimate come next, and a risks section explains how the design guards against reflexive calls and uneven use.
Reading the CAP 6003 Module 3 rubric
Intervention designs are usually judged on alignment, feasibility and specificity. Graders tend to reward designs whose components each answer a stated finding from the literature, whose theory explains a real design choice, and whose objectives are measurable. Feasibility shows in schedules that fit the academic calendar, costs that are named, approvals that are identified and faculty preparation that is planned rather than assumed. Specialist-level work also anticipates unintended effects, such as speed replacing assessment, and builds a safeguard into the design. Accurate APA 7 citations for theories and standards complete the paper, and a clear name for the intervention helps readers follow it. A design that names its own weak points, and shows what was added to protect against each, usually reads as more credible than one that claims none.
CAP 6003 Module 3 help from the desk
Capstone designs often list good ideas without saying who will deliver them, when or how they connect to the research. If you need help shaping your synthesis into components, choosing a theory that justifies real choices or writing objectives Module 4 can measure, a writer can take it on with you. Send your Module 1 and Module 2 work and the assignment directions, and a Module 3 design will be drafted that fits your calendar, budget and authority. Public health education capstones can be designed the same way around a class, outreach program or clinic workflow. Workshop handouts, scenario outlines or prompt cards can be drafted as appendices.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official American College of Education document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
More CAP 6003 and Ed.S. in Nursing Education sample papers
- CAP 6003 Module 1: Capstone Proposal
- CAP 6003 Module 2: Research Synthesis
- CAP 6003 Module 4: Evaluation Plan
- CAP 6003 Module 5: Capstone Report and Portfolio
- NUR 6023 Module 4: Resilience and Mindset Analysis
- NUR 6003 Module 6: Synthesis of Influencing Forces
- NUR 6013 Module 6: Professional Development Plan
- NUR 6053 Module 3: Program Evaluation Plan
CAP 6003 Module 3 questions, answered
What does CAP6003 Module 3 usually ask for?
The third CAP6003 module typically asks you to design the intervention or action plan your capstone will test, grounded in your synthesis and described in enough detail that someone else could deliver it.
How detailed should a capstone intervention design be?
Detailed enough to run: who delivers each part, to whom, when, with what materials and at what cost, plus how each part answers a finding from your research synthesis.
What is the PEARLS debriefing framework?
Eppich and Cheng's approach that moves through reaction, description, analysis and summary and blends learner self-assessment, focused facilitation and directive teaching as the moment requires.
Where can I find a free CAP 6003 Module 3 sample paper?
The full Module 3 design is on this page: a 90-minute scripted-call workshop, two escalation scenarios and a clinical prompt card for nursing students who wait too long to call.
Should an Ed.S. capstone design include a budget?
Usually yes, even a short one. Listing staff time and small purchases shows the plan is feasible and helps a program director approve it.