| Course | NUR 6053 Catalyst for Quality Improvement in Nursing Education |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 1 |
| Paper type | Formative and summative assessment analysis |
| Length | 1,160 words, about 4 pages plus title and reference pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | American College of Education |
| Program | Ed.S. in Nursing Education |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for NUR 6053 Module 1
The Midterm That Everyone Treats as a Final: Separating Formative From Summative Assessment in the Classroom, the Skills Lab and Clinical in a Two-Campus Associate Degree Program
Student Name
American College of Education
NUR6053: Catalyst for Quality Improvement in Nursing Education
Module 1 Assignment
Instructor Name
November 4, 2030
Two Purposes, One Problem
Assessment serves two purposes. Summative assessment certifies what a student has achieved, typically once a unit or course has finished, and its results are used for grades and progression. Formative assessment gathers evidence of learning while it is under way and uses that evidence to adjust teaching and learning. Black and Wiliam (1998), reviewing about 250 studies, concluded that strengthening formative assessment produced significant learning gains, with typical effect sizes between 0.4 and 0.7, and that the gains were often largest for lower-achieving students. The same instrument can serve either purpose; what makes an assessment formative is that its results are used to help learning, not only to judge it.
Our composite program, an associate degree program with 180 students a year on two campuses, has a problem the distinction makes clear. Almost every assessment we give is used summatively. Quizzes count toward the grade, skills check-offs are pass or fail on the first attempt, and the clinical midterm evaluation, intended as a checkpoint, is recorded, averaged into the clinical grade and read by students as a verdict. Faculty report that students avoid showing what they cannot do. A student who expects every observation to be judged will perform for the observer rather than learn from them.
What Makes Feedback Work
Formative assessment works through feedback, and not all feedback helps. Hattie and Timperley (2007) propose that effective feedback answers three questions for the learner: where am I going, how am I going and where to next. It can operate at four levels: the task, the process used to do the task, the learner's self-regulation, and the self as a person. Feedback about the process and self-regulation tends to be most powerful for deep learning, while feedback about the self, such as general praise, carries little information and is least effective. Reviewing research on formative feedback, Shute (2008) similarly recommends that feedback be specific, focused on the task rather than the learner, timely and supportive, and that it be delivered in manageable units rather than all at once.
Measured against these principles, most of our feedback is weak. Clinical evaluation comments are often general, such as "good week, keep it up" or "needs to improve time management," which tell the student neither where to go nor what to do next. Quiz feedback shows a score and the correct answers but not why the student's answer was wrong.
Redesigning Three Settings
Classroom. Weekly quizzes will become formative: they will count for completion rather than score, allow two attempts and give an explanation for each option. Unit examinations remain summative. Faculty will use the weekly quiz results to choose what to revisit in the next class, so that the evidence changes teaching, which is the sense in which Black and Wiliam use the term.
Skills laboratory. Before each summative check-off, students will complete at least one formative practice session in which a peer uses the same checklist and gives feedback, followed by a brief faculty observation with no pass or fail. The check-off remains summative, with one repeat allowed after remediation. The change separates practicing, where mistakes are expected, from certifying, where they count.
Clinical. The midterm evaluation will no longer be averaged into the grade. It will be a formative conversation, using the same tool as the final evaluation, in which the student and instructor rate each competency independently, compare ratings and agree on two specific goals for the second half of the rotation. Weekly feedback will follow the three questions: the goal, current performance and the next step. For example, instead of "needs to improve time management," an instructor might say, "By week six you should be giving all 0900 medications to two patients by 1000; today you finished at 1045 because you gathered supplies separately for each patient; next week, plan one trip to the medication room for both patients before 0845." The final evaluation remains summative.
What Faculty Worry About
When the redesign was discussed at a faculty meeting, three objections came up, and each deserves an answer. The first was that students will not take ungraded quizzes seriously. Some will not, at first. The quizzes will still count for completion, and faculty will show the class, after the first unit examination, how scores on the formative quizzes related to scores on the examination, which usually persuades students more than any rule. The second objection was that a formative midterm removes an early warning, since a poor midterm grade used to alert students that they were at risk. The formative conversation does the same job better: it names the competencies at risk and sets goals, and any student rated below expectations on a safety-related competency will receive a written learning contract at midterm, as now. What changes is that the warning comes with a plan rather than a number. The third objection was time. Writing specific feedback takes longer than writing general comments, and the program's clinical instructors supervise eight students. The one-page guide includes short sentence stems for each of the three questions, and instructors will be asked to write specific feedback on two competencies per student per week rather than on all of them. Specific feedback on two competencies helps more than general comments on ten. These answers will not satisfy everyone, and the committee will review faculty experience after the first semester.
Keeping the Two Campuses Consistent
A two-campus program adds a practical problem: the same change can be implemented differently at each site, and students compare notes. The redesign will be introduced at a joint faculty meeting with examples of strong and weak feedback from each campus, rated together against the three questions. Clinical instructors, many of them part-time staff nurses, will receive a one-page guide and a fifteen-minute recorded example of a formative midterm conversation. The skills laboratory coordinators on both campuses will use identical practice and check-off checklists. Consistency matters for fairness, but also for evaluation: if the two campuses implement the change differently, differences in results cannot be interpreted.
How the Change Will Be Checked
Three measures will show whether formative assessment is working. First, first-attempt pass rates on skills check-offs should rise if practice sessions help, and the number of students needing a repeat should fall. Second, final clinical evaluation ratings should show improvement on the competencies students identified as midterm goals, which the evaluation tool records. Third, a sample of written clinical feedback will be reviewed each semester against the three questions, to see whether feedback has become more specific. A student survey will also ask whether students felt able to show weaknesses at midterm. If scores fall on unit examinations because quizzes no longer count, the change will be reconsidered, but the evidence suggests that learning, and therefore summative performance, should improve.
References
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 5(1), 7-74. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969595980050102
Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112. https://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298487
Shute, V. J. (2008). Focus on formative feedback. Review of Educational Research, 78(1), 153-189. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654307313795
The NUR 6053 Module 1 assignment instructions
NUR 6053 Module 1 usually asks an Ed.S. student to explain how formative and summative assessment differ and to show the difference at work in nursing education. Most versions want both terms defined from scholarly sources rather than a glossary, then applied to real assessments the writer has seen or given: a quiz, a skills check-off, a clinical evaluation or a simulation debrief. Many prompts also ask how feedback should be given so that formative work changes learning, and some ask for a plan to rebalance a course or a whole program. Expect four to six pages of body text in APA 7 with a title page and references. ACE builds each module in Canvas, so open the current prompt and rubric before you start, since the settings and page limit can differ between terms.
How the NUR 6053 Module 1 example is put together
The example opens with the problem instead of the definitions. After a short account of the two purposes, it describes a program where the clinical midterm is averaged into the grade and students perform for the observer. The second section brings in the three feedback questions from Hattie and Timperley and the Shute review, then measures the program's own comments against them. The core of the paper redesigns three settings one at a time: weekly quizzes become completion-based with explanations, skills practice is separated from the check-off, and the midterm becomes a paired self and instructor rating. A section on faculty objections answers three concerns raised at a meeting, and the last two sections cover consistency across campuses and the measures that will show whether the redesign worked.
Where the points sit in the NUR 6053 Module 1 rubric
The rubric for this module generally rewards three things: accurate use of the two concepts, application to real settings, and support from scholarly sources. Full points on the concept criterion go to papers that define each assessment type by its purpose, not only its timing, which is why the example stresses that one instrument can serve either purpose. Application is where most points sit, and it rewards concrete redesigns with a before-and-after picture; the rewritten time-management comment is there for that reason. Evidence points depend on citing primary work such as the 1998 review by Black and Wiliam instead of secondary summaries, and on weaving sources into the argument. The remaining points usually cover APA 7 mechanics, organization and a clear professional voice.
Common NUR 6053 Module 1 mistakes, and how to avoid them
The most frequent mistake on this assignment is a paper that defines the two terms at length and then lists examples without analyzing them. A second is calling any low-stakes activity formative even when nobody uses its results to change teaching; the example guards against that by tying each quiz result to what faculty revisit in the next class. Writers also lose points by recommending changes without admitting their costs, such as the extra time specific feedback takes, or by ignoring who will carry the change out on each campus. Keep the settings few and treat each one fully. If you would like a version built on your own program, your own evaluation tool and your instructor's rubric, the desk can draft one, and the first custom sample is free.
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.
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NUR 6053 Module 1 questions, answered
What does NUR6053 Module 1 usually ask for?
NUR6053 Module 1 typically asks you to distinguish formative and summative assessment and apply the distinction to nursing education settings with examples. Your classroom's instructions decide the settings.
Can the same assessment be formative and summative?
The same instrument can serve either purpose. What makes an assessment formative is that its results are used to guide learning and teaching rather than only to grade.
What makes clinical feedback effective?
Specific feedback that tells the student the goal, how they are doing against it and what to do next, focused on the task and process rather than general praise.
Where can I find a free NUR 6053 Module 1 sample paper?
The full paper sits on this page at no cost: an APA 7 title page, six body sections on formative and summative assessment in a two-campus program, margin notes and three references. Nothing is locked behind a form. For a version shaped to your own prompt, use the request link.
Should a clinical midterm evaluation count toward the grade?
Programs differ. The example argues it should not be averaged into the clinical grade, because a formative midterm lets students reveal weaknesses while there is time to fix them; a student below expectations on a safety competency still receives a written learning contract.