Nurses' Experiences of Patient-Related Violence in Emergency Departments

The four primary research articles analyzed in this paper reveal that nurses face extreme violence in their workplace, including physical and verbal assaults from patients and their families. Nurses often accept such behaviors as a common issue of the workplace and do not report them. The findings provide insights into coping strategies and implications for clinical practice, including interventions to prevent patient aggression and provide care to nurses after such events. However, there are existing gaps in knowledge and practice, including the need for more support from hospitals to report against workplace violence.

NURS 3046 Nursing ProjectAssignment 1 (2,000 words 45%)
STUDENT NAME: STUDENT ID:
Do not change this template
Please note: 2,000 words includes the in-text references but excludes the citations andReference List.
Introduction
Workplace violence is a significant stressor for nurses working in Emergency Department settings
worldwide(Gates, Gillespie &Succop 2011). It is estimated that a quarter of all health employees are likely
to experience violent incidents, either verbal or physical, in their direct patient care during their career
(World Health Organization 2016). Globally and within Australia, there is an increasing level of workplace
patient-related violence toward health care workers in Emergency Departments(Sato et al. 2013).Notably,
nurses have been identified as the most at risk health workers to be involved in aggressive situations with
patients or relatives that result in physical injuries and psychological harm(Pich et al. 2011;Hahn et al.
2010).Violence is a significant occupational hazard, but is often under-reported by nurses. Violence
influences nurses’retention, high turnover decisions and reduces nurses’ work productivity (Gillespie, Gates
& Berry2013; Chapman et al. 2009). Studies show that nurses working in Emergency Departments (ED)
experience physical assaults at the highest rate of all nurses (Crilly, Chaboyer, &Creedy 2004).In a US
study, ‘ninety four percent of nurses experienced at least one post-traumatic stress disorder symptom after
a violent event, with 17% having scores high enough to be considered probably for PTSD’ (Gates, Gillespie
&Succop 2011, p. 59). But alarmingly, there is an under-reporting of workplace violence and aggression
which has been attributed, in part, to the poor response by managers to deal with the problem (Wolf et al.
2014). In order to address patient-related violence, it is essential to understand the complexity of the
problem. One aspect is to gain insight into the perceptions of nurses who have experienced violence in the
ED setting.
Research Question: What are nurses’ experiences of patient-related violence whilst working in the
Emergency Department setting?
The research question is highly significant in clinical practice because nurses’ experiences and
coping strategies can provide insightsinto how they cope as they strive to provide person-centred care in a
workplace withescalating levels of patient and relative-related violence (NMBA 2016). Whilst the issue of
workplace aggression in the ED is complex and mulit-factorial, exploring this problem from the nurses’
perspectives is imperative. Findings could inform safe work practices, interventions to prevent patient
aggression, and provide care to ED nurses after such events (Gates, Gillespie &Succop 2011).Findings
could inform strategies that target audiences such as nurse managers and nurses could implementto
improve safety in work environments and occupational health and safety for all. Findings could also be
used by nurse educators to raise awareness and promote effective strategies in the nursing curriculum.
The research question is therefore highly relevant to clinical practice and has wider implications for the
profession and the provision of safe working environments for all nurses working in Emergency Department
settings.
2018 Scenario 2 Violence ED Nurses 1

SUMMARY ANALYSIS OF FOUR (4) PRIMARY RESEARCH ARTICLES (1200 words)
Select four (4) primary research articles (from the 8 articles provided) that provide relevant evidence to
answer the research question. Write a 300 wordsummary of each primary research article using the three
step formatlearned in Topic 2.
Paper 1: Nurses’ attitude towards the reporting of violence in the emergency department
The research paper revealed that the nurses are experiencing workplace violence in the emergency
departments of the hospitals and it is increasing at an alarming rate. It has become a serious
concern for the nurses working in the healthcare organizations. Nurses sometimes become the
victims of violence which may affect their working life as well as result in mental misbalance to.
The paper described that in order to identify the attitude of the nurses regarding workplace
violence, a study was conducted in a large metropolitan emergency department of Melbourne,
Australia according to Maguire et al. (2018 p. 170). All the emergency nurses who experienced
such violence during their working hours were the participants of the study. There were 42
cubicles and 113 full-time nursing staffs in the hospital and all of them participated in the study.
Some semi-structured interview questions were asked of all the participants regarding the violence
they experienced from the patients and their families during their working hours and their
responses were recorded for the further analysis as per Morken et al. (2015 p. 51). Therefore, from
the analysis result, it was clear that although the participants accepted the violence as a part of
their work they all have experienced physical violence and verbal abuse. Participants indicated
that sometimes they received bad behavior from the patients also. The study revealed that they did
not report anywhere for the verbal attacks from the patients who used abusive language to the
nurses. It was found in the study that some of the nurses also excused the patients for their abusive
behavior towards them. As a conclusion after the study, it can be said that nurses reported violence
in their workplaces. Some of them were very much abusive also. But, most of the nurses accepted
the violence as a common issue of the workplace. Nurses were highly selective about the
incidence of violence they experienced whilst working in the emergencies.
Paper 2: Workplace violence against emergency nurses in Taiwan: A phenomenographic study
2018 Scenario 2 Violence ED Nurses 2

In this paper the author stated that different types of workplace violence may occur such as
threatening, physical assault, verbal abuse, harassing and rude behavior also. In an American
study, it has been found that 50% nurses of emergency department become the victim of
workplace violence in a single week as per Pouryaghoub et al. (2017 p. 16). This violence may
occur when a nurse is treating a patient in the emergency department and the family members of
the patient may become aggressive on the procedures of the hospitals and as a consequence,
nurses become the worst sufferers. It is becoming increasingly and the report says that nurses
sometimes beaten, spat on or punched by the family members of the patients. Violence in the
emergency department not only creates a problem for the staffs and nurses but also becomes the
reason for the safety issues of the patients admitted there. The riskiest place for the workplace
violence for nurses is the emergency department and it has been found from many researched that
almost 90% of nurses have experienced such violence which resulted in physical injuries too
according to (Hamdan, 2015). A qualitative study was organized in Taiwan to understand and the
personal and professional responses of the nurses regarding their experience in workplace
violence. In the study, the phenomenographic approach was taken in which many questions were
asked of the participating nurses individually and their responses of experience were recorded for
the further analysis. The nurses who participated in the study were above the age of 20. From the
result it was analyzed that some nurses reported, workplace violence in the emergency department
can sometimes be a direct threat to their life also and even it is an ongoing nightmare for them
(Arnetz et al. 2015 p. 340). Nurses never get support to report such violence and they accept that
as a part of their work. Hospitals of Taiwan are looking to put serious attention for the safety of
their workers.
Paper 3: NOTHING CHANGES, NOBODY CARES: UNDERSTANDING THE EXPERIENCE OF
EMERGENCY NURSES PHYSICALLY OR VERBALLY ASSAULTED WHILE PROVIDING CARE
In the paper, it is mentioned that workplace violence is termed as violent crime and in some recent
studies it has been found that more than 70% nurses of emergency departments experience
workplace violence like threatening, physical as well as verbal assaults and others (Egerton-
Warburton et al. 2016 p. 155). This paper also mentioned that in order to understand the
2018 Scenario 2 Violence ED Nurses 3

experience of the nurses who work in the emergency department and received verbal and physical
assault, a study was organized with the use of a qualitative descriptive exploratory design. 46
English-speaking nurses from Emergency Nurse Association were the participants of this survey
and they sent emails elaborating their experience of violence in their workplace. The participants
were asked to narrate their worst experiences in the mails. All the narratives were reviewed by the
principal investigators. Most of the nurses explored that they work in such an environment where
nobody cares about their safety (Hogarth et al. 2016 p. 80). Some of the nurses said that they
found themselves fearful before coming into their workplaces because they were reluctant to come
into any violent situation. Many nurses find it difficult to work alone as people often behave badly
or loudly. Even they also experience the reaction of post-traumatic patients which makes them cry
too (Wei et al. 2016 p. 65) Sometimes institutes also leave the nurse in vulnerable positions so
they experience much unacceptable behavior from psychiatric patients. The nurses not only
receive verbal abuse but also physical assaults which may result in physical injuries too. From the
qualitative study, it became quite clear that nurses experience severe workplace violence and they
fear to work sometimes. Violence in the emergency department is quite common and it affects the
mental stability of the nurses as well as other healthcare professionals (Hsieh et al. 2016 p. 25).
The nurses are seeking the intervention of higher authorities in order to reduce the workplace
violence so that they can work safely and efficiently to cure the patients which will benefit both
the parties.
Paper 4: Patient-related violence at triage : a qualitative descriptive study
According to the author of the paper, many issues may arise in the workplace and one of them is
workplace violence which is increasing in the emergency departments of the hospitals globally
and due to this the most sufferers are the nurses. This common feature of emergency department
has become a significant professional issue worldwide. In order to describe the experiences of
triage nurses with patient-related violence, a study was organized. Therefore, to conduct the study,
a qualitative descriptive design was selected. Data was collected after the completion of semi-
structured interviews which were conducted on the nurses of the emergency department of a
public hospital situated in New South Wales, Australia. The experiences of a single moth were
recorded in the study (Speroni et al. 2014 p. 220). There were six participants from the age
between 29 to 53 years and it included two male and four female participants. In the interview,
data were recorded in an audio tape for the further analysis by the researchers using qualitative
2018 Scenario 2 Violence ED Nurses 4

content analysis (ALBashtawy et al. 2015 p. 75). Moreover, the result revealed that all the nurses
experienced physical abuses that include slap, kick and hit by the patients. One of them shared that
a patient used his fist to protest and punched on the safety glass of the nurse. Even, another
participant stated that once a knife was thrown by an agitated patient and taking out needles and
other small objects as a weapon is quite common in physical violence in the hospitals. One of the
participants shared that threaten from the family members of the patients is also common and it
makes them really afraid (Jiao et al. 2015). Patients often shout and use abusive words to the
nurses which make them emotionally broken sometimes. So, from the study, it was absolutely
clear that the nurses always experience different kinds of physical as well as verbal assaults in
their workplace which make them a bit nervous sometimes to work efficiently.
Discussion (600 words)
Compare andcontrastthe findings of four (4) primary research articles using the approach learned in Topic
3. Ensure the analysis explains how the findings answer the research question. Identify any existing gaps
in knowledge or practice. Discussion may be supported by additional relevant literature.
From the analysis of the research paper, it has become quite clear that nurses face extreme
violence in their workplace (Waschgler et al. 2013 p. 1420). In the first paper, the research team
went to a hospital in Melbourne, Australia in order to record the responses of nurses regarding
their experience of physical assaults and other violence in their workplace. All the participants
indicated that they not only get bad behaviors from the patients but also from their families. But,
most of the nurses also accepted such behaviors and they did not report it anywhere. Again, in the
second research which was held in the Taiwan hospital, 90% of the nurses reported that they
experienced violence in the emergency department of the hospitals. Even they have received many
threats from the family members of the patients which made them really afraid. The nurses were
sometimes beaten, spat on and hit by the patients which resulted in some serious injuries also. So,
they all share their personal experience and stated that working in the hospital sometimes seemed
to be a nightmare for them. Even they do not always get support from the hospitals to report
against such violence. In the third research paper, a study was organized with the nurses of the
2018 Scenario 2 Violence ED Nurses 5

Emergency Nurse Association and 46 nurses participated in the survey (Pouryaghoub et al. 2017
p. 20). 70% of the nurses stated that they have experienced physical and verbal assaults in their
workplace. The nurses shared their experience via mail and one of them shared that due to abusive
behavior by the patients in the workplace sometimes their willingness of coming in the hospitals
gets destroyed. Even work becomes the nightmare to them. Some of the behaviors from the
psychiatric and post-traumatic patients even make them cry also. So, this paper also revealed that
nurses experience severe violence in their workplace. In the fourth research paper, the author
mentioned that violence in the emergency department is quite common and in order to have an
idea about their experience a study was organized in a hospital of New South Wales of Australia.
In the interviews which were conducted with six participants revealed that all of them experienced
physical harassment (Angland et al. 2014 p. 135). Patients slapped, kicked and even punched on
them. Sometimes this led to serious injuries. The nurses were habituated with the shouting and the
abusive language of the patients. So, all the researches were successful in establishing the fact that
nurses experience various kinds of violence in the emergency departments of the hospitals. Not
only they receive verbally abusive language but also some physical assaults and threats from the
patients as well as from their families. The main research question was to find the experiences of
nurses regarding workplace violence and all the research papers and study results prove the fact
that nurses experience various dangerous situations whilst working and most of the violence
occurs in the emergency departments of the hospitals. Even some additional research papers also
revealed that in many cases nurses fear to stay alone in their workplaces as they get afraid of
violence while taking care of different kinds of patients (Blando et al. 2015). Although in all the
research papers the experience of the nurses has been recorded properly it also has some gaps in
the research process. The interviews were conducted with the nurses only. It was necessary to
record the experience of other staffs and their opinion on the workplace violence in the emergency
department of the hospitals. If it could have taken then the research would get a huge amount of
result from different perspectives which would produce a more accurate data (Phillips, 2016). So,
the findings from the research perfectly answered the research question.
2018 Scenario 2 Violence ED Nurses 6

Conclusion (150-200 words)
Summarise the major points in a non-repetitive manner, discuss future directions for research.
The above paper discusses the professional issue regarding workplace violence which affects the
nurses in doing their work effectively. The paper analyses many research articles for the scenario
package and establishes the fact that nurses face various physical as well as verbal assaults from
the patients and their families too. It is appropriate in answering the research question also as the
analysis of various research articles provides some example of real life experience regarding
violence of the nurses in their workplace and mostly in the emergency department. Although,
there was a little gap in the analysis as other than nurses none involved in the interview round to
express their opinion. If it would happen then the result could produce a larger data. But, as a
conclusion it can be said that all the research papers proved the fact perfectly that nurses
experience several troubles as workplace violence.
2018 Scenario 2 Violence ED Nurses 7

2018 Scenario 2 Violence ED Nurses 8

REFERENCES
Chapman, R, Perry, L, Styles, I.& Combs, S 2009, 'Consequences of workplace violence directed at
nurses', British Journal Of Nursing, vol.18, no. 20, pp. 1256-1261.
Crilly, J, Chaboyer, W.& Creedy, D 2004, ‘Violence towards emergency department nurses by patients’.
Accident andEmergency Nursing, vol.12, no.2, pp. 67-73.
Gates, DM, Gillespie, GL.&Succop, P 2011, ‘Violence against nurses and its impact on stress and
productivity’, Nursing Economics, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 59-67.
Gillespie, G, Gates, D.& Berry, P 2013, ‘Stressful Incidents of Physical Violence Against Emergency
Nurses’, Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 76-2.
Hahn, S, Müller, M, Needham, I, Dassen, T, Kok, G.&Halfens, R 2010, 'Factors associated with patient and
visitor violence experienced by nurses in general hospitals in Switzerland: a cross‐sectional
survey', Journal of Clinical Nursing, vol. 19, no. 23‐24, pp. 3535-3546.
Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia 2016, Registered Nurse Standards for Practice, NMBA,
Canberra, viewed 23 April 2018http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/search.aspx?q=Registered
%20Nurse%20Standards%20for%20Practice
Pich, J, Hazelton, M, Sundin, D.& Kable, A 2011, 'Patient-related violence at triage: A qualitative descriptive
study', International Emergency Nursing, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 12-19.
Sato, K, Wakabayashi, T, Kiyoshi-Teo, H.&Fukahori, H 2013, ‘Factors associated with nurses’ reporting of
patients’ aggressive behaviour: A cross-sectional survey’,International Journal of Nursing Studies, 50:
1368-1376.
World Health Organisation 2016, Violence against Healthcare Workers, viewed 23 April, 2018
http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/workplace/en/
Wolf, LA, Delao, AM, Perhats, C.& Plaines, D2014, ‘Nothing changes, nobody cares: Understanding the
experience of emergency nurses physically or verbally assaulted while providing care’, Journal of
Emergency Nursing, vol. 40, pp. 305-310.
2018 Scenario 2 Violence ED Nurses 9

ALBashtawy, M., Al-Azzam, M., Rawashda, A., Batiha, A.M., Bashaireh, I. and Sulaiman, M.,
2015. Workplace violence toward emergency department staff in Jordanian hospitals: a cross-
sectional study. Journal of Nursing Research, 23(1), pp.75-81.
Angland, S., Dowling, M. and Casey, D., 2014. Nurses’ perceptions of the factors which cause
violence and aggression in the emergency department: a qualitative study. International
emergency nursing, 22(3), pp.134-139.
Arnetz, J.E., Hamblin, L., Essenmacher, L., Upfal, M.J., Ager, J. and Luborsky, M., 2015.
Understanding patient‐to‐worker violence in hospitals: a qualitative analysis of documented
incident reports. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(2), pp.338-348.
Blando, J., Ridenour, M., Hartley, D. and Casteel, C., 2015. Barriers to effective implementation
of programs for the prevention of workplace violence in hospitals. Online journal of issues in
nursing, 20(1).
Egerton-Warburton, D., Gosbell, A., Wadsworth, A., Moore, K., Richardson, D. and Fatovich, D.,
2016. Perceptions of Australasian emergency department staff of the impact of alcohol-related
presentations. Medical Journal of Australia, 204(4), pp.155-e1.
Hamdan, M., 2015. Workplace violence towards workers in the emergency departments of
Palestinian hospitals: a cross-sectional study. Human resources for health, 13(1), p.28.
Hogarth, K.M., Beattie, J. and Morphet, J., 2016. Nurses’ attitudes towards the reporting of
violence in the emergency department. Australasian emergency nursing journal, 19(2), pp.75-81.
Hsieh, H.F., Hung, Y.T., Wang, H.H., Ma, S.C. and Chang, S.C., 2016. Factors of resilience in
emergency department nurses who have experienced workplace violence in Taiwan. Journal of
nursing scholarship, 48(1), pp.23-30.
2018 Scenario 2 Violence ED Nurses 10

Jiao, M., Ning, N., Li, Y., Gao, L., Cui, Y., Sun, H., Kang, Z., Liang, L., Wu, Q. and Hao, Y.,
2015. Workplace violence against nurses in Chinese hospitals: a cross-sectional survey. BMJ
open, 5(3), p.e006719.
Maguire, B.J., O'meara, P., O'neill, B.J. and Brightwell, R., 2018. Violence against emergency
medical services personnel: A systematic review of the literature. American journal of industrial
medicine, 61(2), pp.167-180.
Morken, T., Johansen, I.H. and Alsaker, K., 2015. Dealing with workplace violence in emergency
primary health care: a focus group study. BMC family practice, 16(1), p.51.
Phillips, J.P., 2016. Workplace violence against health care workers in the United States. New
England journal of medicine, 374(17), pp.1661-1669.
Pouryaghoub, G., Mehrdad, R. and Alirezaei, P., 2017. Workplace violence in medical specialty
training settings in Iran: a cross-sectional study. International journal of occupational
hygiene, 9(1), pp.15-20.
Speroni, K.G., Fitch, T., Dawson, E., Dugan, L. and Atherton, M., 2014. Incidence and cost of
nurse workplace violence perpetrated by hospital patients or patient visitors. Journal of emergency
nursing, 40(3), pp.218-228.
Waschgler, K., Ruiz‐Hernández, J.A., Llor‐Esteban, B. and García‐Izquierdo, M., 2013. Patients'
aggressive behaviours towards nurses: development and psychometric properties of the hospital
aggressive behaviour scale‐users. Journal of advanced nursing, 69(6), pp.1418-1427.
Wei, C.Y., Chiou, S.T., Chien, L.Y. and Huang, N., 2016. Workplace violence against nurses–
Prevalence and association with hospital organizational characteristics and health-promotion
efforts: Cross-sectional study. International journal of nursing studies, 56, pp.63-70.
2018 Scenario 2 Violence ED Nurses 11

NURS 3046 Nursing ProjectAssessment Feedback Form & Marking Rubric
Assessment 1 (2000 words)Weighting 45% of final course gradeCO 1; CO 2, CO3
CRITERIA HD (85% 100%) DN (75% - 84%) CR (65% - 74%) P1 (55% - 64%) P2 (50% - 54%) F1 (40% - 49%) F2 (39% - 0%)
SUMMARY
OF FOUR (4)
PRIMARY
RESEARCH
ARTICLES
(300 words
per article)
50%
Includes all
requirements of a
Distinction AND
All summaries of
the primary
research articles
are exemplary
Original,
impressive
thinking.
Includes all
requirements of a
Credit AND
All summaries of the
primary research
articles arehigh
level, complex and
comprehensive
Advanced thinking.
Includes all
requirements of a
P1 AND
All summaries of
the primary
research
articlesareclear
and succinct
.
Used articles not provided in
the Study Package
RQ changed
1st Primary research article
Correct UniSA Harvard author-
date citation
Adequate attempt to
summarize the article using the
3 step framework.
Sufficient detail about design,
participants, data collection
methods and analysis.
In-depth detail about findings.
(about 50% of summary)
Clearly written
Sound sentence structure
Adheres to word count
1st Primary research article
Correct UniSA Harvard author-
date citation
Limited, superficial attempt to
summarize the article using the
3 step framework.
Too little detail about design,
participants, data collection
methods and analysis.
Too little detail about findings,
basic,inadequate.
Not clearly written, some errors
Some confusing sentences
Adheres to word count
1st Primary research article
Incorrect UniSA Harvard
author-date citation
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated attempt to
summarize article. Did not
follow the 3 step framework.
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated detail about design
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated detail about
findings. Information missing
Poor written communication
Hard to understand
Below word count
Above word count
1st Primary research article
No Citation
Did not follow the 3 step
framework
Paraphrasing & summary of
findings incorrect
Abstract provided
Incoherent writing.
Significant grammatical &/or
spelling errors
Well below word limit
Well above word limit
Missing summary
2nd Primary research article
Correct UniSA Harvard author-
date citation
Adequate attempt to
summarize the article using the
3 step framework.
Sufficient detail about design,
participants, data collection
methods and analysis.
In-depth detail about findings.
(about 50% of summary)
2nd Primary research article
Correct UniSA Harvard author-
date citation
Limited, superficial attempt to
summarize the article using the
3 step framework.
Too littledetail about design,
participants, data collection
methods and analysis.
Too little detail about findings,
basic,inadequate.
2ndPrimary research article
Incorrect UniSA Harvard
author-date citation
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated attempt to
summarize article. Did not
follow the 3 step framework.
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated detail about design
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated detail about
2ndPrimary research article
No Citation
Did not follow the 3 step
framework
Paraphrasing & summary of
findings incorrect
Abstract provided
Incoherent writing.
Significant grammatical &/or
spelling errors
201812

Clearly written
Sound sentence structure
Adheres to word count
Not clearly written, some errors
Some confusing sentences
Adheres to word count
findings. Information missing
Poor written communication
Hard to understand
Below word count
Above word count
Well below word limit
Well above word limit
Missing summary
3rd Primary research article
Correct UniSA Harvard author-
date citation
Adequate attempt to
summarize the article using the
3 step framework.
Sufficient detail about design,
participants, data collection
methods and analysis.
In-depth detail about findings.
(about 50% of summary)
Clearly written
Sound sentence structure
Adheres to word count
3rd Primary research article
Correct UniSA Harvard author-
date citation
Limited, superficial attempt to
summarize the article using the
3 step framework.
Too littledetail about design,
participants, data collection
methods and analysis.
Too little detail about findings,
basic,inadequate.
Not clearly written, some errors
Some confusing sentences
Adheres to word count
3rd Primary research article
Incorrect UniSA Harvard
author-date citation
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated attempt to
summarize article. Did not
follow the 3 step framework.
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated detail about design
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated detail about
findings. Information missing
Poor written communication
Hard to understand
Below word count
Above word count
3rdPrimary research article
No Citation
Did not follow the 3 step
framework
Paraphrasing & summary of
findings incorrect
Abstract provided
Incoherent writing.
Significant grammatical &/or
spelling errors
Well below word limit
Well above word limit
Missing summary
4thPrimary research article
Correct UniSA Harvard author-
date citation
Adequate attempt to
summarize the article using the
3 step framework.
Sufficient detail about design,
participants, data collection
methods and analysis.
In-depth detail about findings.
(about 50% of summary)
Clearly written
Sound sentence structure
4th Primary research article
Correct UniSA Harvard author-
date citation
Limited, superficial attempt to
summarize the article using the
3 step framework.
Too littledetail about design,
participants, data collection
methods and analysis.
Too little detail about findings,
basic,inadequate.
Not clearly written, some errors
Some confusing sentences
4th Primary research article
Incorrect UniSA Harvard
author-date citation
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated attempt to
summarize article. Did not
follow the 3 step framework.
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated detail about design
Mostly poor, irrelevant,
unrelated detail about
findings. Information missing
Poor written communication
Hard to understand
4thPrimary research article
No Citation
Did not follow the 3 step
framework
Paraphrasing & summary of
findings incorrect
Abstract provided
Incoherent writing.
Significant grammatical &/or
spelling errors
Well below word limit
Well above word limit
Missing summary
201813

Adheres to word count Adheres to word count Below word count
Above word count
DISCUSSION
(600 words)
40%
Includes all
requirements of a
Distinction AND
Exceptional
critical analysis
and capacity for
higher order,
original, creative
thinking
Innovative gaps
in knowledge or
practice identified
Sophisticated
ability to integrate
an impressive
range of
additional relevant
literature
Includes all
requirements of a
Credit AND
High level
comprehensive
attempt to compare
and contrast
findings from the 4
primary research
articles to answer
research question
Complex gaps in
knowledge or
practice identified
High level
comprehensive
ability to integrate
an impressive range
of additional
relevant literature
Includes all
requirements of a
P1 AND
Clear,
succinctattempt to
compare and
contrast findings
from the 4 primary
research articles to
answer the
research question
Existing gaps in
knowledge or
practice clearly
identified - what
still needs to be
known about the
problem
Adequate attempt to compare
and contrast findings from the
4 primary research articles
using approach learned in
Topic 3 to answer the research
question
Limited basic
descriptiveattempt to compare
and contrast findings from the 4
primary research articles using
approach learned in Topic 3 to
answer the research question.
Some inadequate sections.
Mostly irrelevant, unrelated
attempt to compare and
contrast findings using the
approach learned in Topic 3.
Less than 4 primary research
articles cited.
Hard to understand
As for Fail 1 &/or Incorrect
discussion of findings.
Did not cite primary research
articles in discussion. Only
cited other articles
Presented 4 summary
paragraphs – did not compare
or contrast findings.
Discussion section missing
Gaps in knowledge or practice
adequately identified - what
still needs to be known about
the problem
Gaps in knowledge or practice
identified at a basic
superficial level about what
still needs to be known about
the problem
Identified knowledge gaps
that were mostlyirrelevant
or unrelated
Failed to identify knowledge
gaps
Or completely incorrect or
irrelevant
Additional literature used is
relevant to the discussion and
research question.
Additional literature used is not
relevant to the discussion and
research question.
Coherent writing style with
minimal grammatical or spelling
errors.
Correct UniSA Harvard author-
date system for in-text citation,
paraphrasing & reference list.
Adheres to word count
Some incoherent writing.
Some grammatical / spelling
errors
Minor incorrect in-text citation,
paraphrasing; reference list.
Plagiarism, refer to AIO
Below word count
Above word count
Incoherent writing.
Significant grammatical &/or
spelling errors
Major incorrect in-text citation,
paraphrasing reference list.
CONCLUSION
(200 words)
10%
As for DN AND
Exceptional
interpretation
stimulates new
thoughts. Novel
future research
directions
As for CreditAND
Comprehensive
relevant conclusion
with links to theory
and thoughtful
future research
directions
As for P1 AND
Clear succinct
conclusion
Satisfactory conclusion
Clearly written and relevant to
research question.
Summarizes major points in a
non-repetitive manner
Discusses relevant future
directions for research.
Basic, superficial conclusion.
Limited relevance to research
question. Lacks depth.
Some irrelevant discussion
about future directions for
research
Mostly inadequate
conclusion Unclear.
Mostly irrelevant to the
research question
Repetitive information,
vague.
Mostly irrelevant future
directions
No conclusion provided.
Completely irrelevant
conclusion to the research
question.
No future directions discussed
Coherent, basic
writing style with minimal
grammatical or spelling errors.
Adheres to word count
Some incoherent
confusing writing.
Some grammatical / spelling
errors
Incoherent writing style
Significant grammatical &/or
spelling errors
SP6 2017 Template not used
201814

Below word count
Above word count
SP6 2017 Template altered
STUDENT: TUTOR: MARK:
Comments:
201815