Developing as a scholarly writer: the experience of students enrolled in a PhD in nursing program in the United States

Abstract

Graduates of doctoral nursing programs are expected to disseminate knowledge through scholarly writing, yet faculty teaching doctoral nursing students in two specific programs in western Pennsylvania in the United States noted students enter their doctoral programs with varying writing skills. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to uncover the lived experience of developing as a scholarly writer. Data were collected through the use of a demographic questionnaire and personal interviews with 10 students enrolled in their first semester of coursework in a traditional, rather than online, 60-credit PhD in nursing program at a large state university in western Pennsylvania. All interviews were recorded and transcribed and served as rich data sources. Data were analyzed using a systematic approach consistent with hermeneutic phenomenology. Themes uncovered included (a) coming to know about scholarly writing, (b) shifting thinking in order to write scholarly, (c) giving birth: the pain and the pleasure of scholarly writing, and (d) putting all the pieces together into the final product. Findings from this study can help faculty to understand the experiences of nursing student scholarly writing development. Recommendations based on the findings include a collection of teaching strategies that can be used to facilitate scholarly writer development across all levels of nursing education.