Designing a rubric for reflection in nursing: a Legitimation Code Theory and systemic functional linguistics-informed framework

Abstract

This paper reports on an interdisciplinary pedagogical research project involving academic literacy experts and lecturers at a School of Nursing. Specifically, the paper focusses on the development of a data-driven analytical rubric to teach and assess critical reflections in year-one nursing. The purpose of the project was to support the teaching and evaluating of critical reflections of nursing students after their initial clinical placement. Rather than focusing on inter-rater reliability or on pedagogical uses of rubrics, this paper is concerned with the ways the criteria that constitute these rubrics were devised. The data involved 200 student assignments, the existing marking criteria and two focus groups with the nursing lecturers. We analysed the data using aspects of a linguistic theory, systemic functional linguistics, and elements of a sociological framework, Legitimation Code Theory, to understand what constitutes ‘deep reflection’ in clinical nursing practice. Our findings led to a revised analytical rubric which makes visible what is highly valued in nursing reflection tasks. We conclude with a data-driven analytical rubric design framework which involves the analysis of student assignments at various levels of achievement to reveal academic literacy and knowledge practices requirements of reflection tasks.