The purpose of this study was to discover whether a
nurse educator could facilitate the cognitive development
of baccalaureate nursing students using writing strategies
that challenged their thinking.
The literature focuses first on the model of the
cognitive development of college students as Perry first
delineated it (1970) and later modified it (1978; 1981), as
well as on how other researchers have elaborated and
extended it from a descriptive to a prescriptive model.
Also, literature related to writing as a strategy to
facilitate learning, thinking, and developing is
investigated, and specific writing tasks used to those ends
are described.
The study was carried out with two groups of junior
nursing students. A study group, consisting of 29
students, participated in a semester long nursing concepts
course where writing was used to stimulate cognitive
development. The control group, consisting of 16 students,
enrolled in another section of the same course, was not
provided the writing experience.
It was found that the total group (n = 45)
demonstrated levels of cognitive development consistent
with development of nursing students described in other
studies (Colucciello, 1986; Frisch, 1987; Valiga 1983). An
examination of student writing in response to writing
assignments revealed that different kinds of tasks were
effective in challenging students at different levels of
development; different kinds of tasks also elicited
different kinds of cognitve responses. consistent with
other studies (stonewater & Daniels, 1983), it was found
that there was not a statistically significant difference
between the two groups in cognitive development at the end
of the semester.
next to an author's name indicates that all files or directories associated with their ETD are accessible from the Virginia Tech campus network only.
![[VT]](http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/images/ETD-db/restricted.gif)
