What is a Capstone Project?

There is one final project that you will have to complete as a DNP student. In most institutions of higher learning, this project is known as a dnp capstone project. Notably, answering the question, “what is a capstone project” can be more complex that some would care to admit. For starters, this project marks that one has successfully come to the end of a dnp program.

Moreover, it affords nursing doctorate candidates a chance to put their knowledge into practice. In most cases, students who prepare this type of project have to address a certain health care problem. In this case, their dnp project becomes a solution to such a problem. Notably, the entire process of working on this project takes months if not years. For this reason, students who do not have great time management skills struggle a lot with completing it on time.

What is a capstone project and what is not?

It is quite common for students to confuse a dnp capstone project with a dnp thesis. Generally, students who pursue a doctor of philosophy in nursing complete a thesis instead of a capstone. Remarkably, the purpose of a dnp thesis is to generate knowledge that is relevant to the field of nursing. For this reason, when nursing students are writing a thesis, they aim at filling a knowledge gap. The knowledge that nursing students generate when writing a thesis might not necessarily be applicable.

On the other hand, the purpose of preparing dnp capstone projects is to deal with practical problems in the field of nursing. As a result of this, this type of project results in a product that is tangible. Nonetheless, it might as well result in knowledge contribution. Perhaps this is why these two academic projects seem similar and answering the question, “what is a capstone project?” is not that easy.

How to begin the process of producing a capstone project

It is worth noting that there are requirements that you must fulfill for you to work on this type of document. One of such prerequisites is completing your coursework. Normally, the coursework instills students with the relevant knowledge to tackle different nursing problems. Most importantly, coursework helps students to develop research skills. Without such skills, it would be impossible to use conventional methods of solving a nursing problem.

Secondly, you need to identify capstone mentors or supervisors. Such individuals can satisfactorily answer the question “what is a capstone project?” For this their advice is invaluable when preparing this kind of document. You must also identify the healthcare institution that you would like to complete your capstone in. Once you complete these three things then you are good to commence this process.

Ideas for a dnp capstone project

Undoubtedly, you need to figure out the ideas that you would like to work with when preparing your dnp capstone project. To make the whole process easy and manageable, it is important to choose easy dnp project ideas. The question that then begs for an answer becomes, “Exactly where can one obtain such ideas.” Well, there are several ways of getting such concepts.  For starters, you can decide to read nursing articles from reliable journals. Such articles might give you innovative ideas of how to solve a given nursing problem.

Secondly, you can decide to go through your coursework materials. Perhaps this is the easiest way to get such ideas. Yet another effective way of getting such ideas is consulting healthcare experts in the field that you would like to focus on and who perfectly understand the answer to the question, “what is a capstone project?”

Preparing a proposal is part of doing a dnp capstone project

Before you can begin the process of collecting relevant data for your dnp capstone project, you have to prepare a proposal. A dnp project proposal is such an important document as it allows others to get an idea of what you intend to accomplish. Without it, your faculty members would not be able to judge if your proposed project is possible.

For this reason, it would become impossible to get the necessary approval to work on the proposed project. Academic institutions normally issue students with guidelines to follow when preparing dnp capstone proposals. Essentially, your dnp capstone project among other things should have an introduction, literature review and an exhaustive methodology section. Anyone who can comfortably answer the question; “what is a capstone project?” Probably knows how to write a capstone proposal.

Developing a dnp capstone project

The first phase of working on a dnp capstone involves preparing a capstone project. Once you successfully defend your dnp proposal, you should go ahead and begin the data collection phase of your project. The most challenging thing when it comes to working with raw data is analyzing them. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why some students opt to enroll in dnp programs without capstone.

While analyzing the raw data for your capstone, you should keep the product that you intend to come up with in mind. It is important to use the information obtained from such raw data in designing the tangible product. The point here is that your dnp capstone project must be evidence-based. It is important to use verifiable evidence as obtained from the data as nursing is an empirical field of study.

Evaluating the developed product

Once you develop the product that you intend to use to solve a certain healthcare problem that you are interested in, you should be sure to implement it. After its implementation you need to evaluate it. The purpose for evaluating it is twofold. First, it helps you to determine how effective the product is. Secondly, it assists one in determining the efficiency of the designed product. You should use the information obtained from the evaluation stage to further improve your dnp project.

From the above discussion, it is clear that to answer the question, “what is a dnp scholarly project” effectively one has to go deeper into details. No matter how complex it might seem to be, it is doable and actually many have successfully completed it. Therefore, you should not shy away from enrolling in a dnp program just because you will have to prepare this project.