Select a nursing or health research topic that interests you and write a critical review of the literature that supports identification of a research question or problem. It should be evident that you have conducted a systematic search and synthesized and evaluated the quality of the literature. Your aim is to summarize findings of the literature in order to answer your original question or identified problem. You should address the significance of the research topic as part of your assessment and identify any gaps in the research.
At the end of your assessment, you should conclude with: a research aim(s)/question(s)/hypothesis that is clearly linked to the topic, question or problem explored in your critical review of the literature and which will be your starting point for Assessment 3.
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NURS6008
Inquiry and Research in Nursing
Assessment 2: Critical Literature Review


What is required:

The purpose of this assessment is to provide an opportunity for you to demonstrate
achievement of learning objectives 4, 5 and 6 for this Unit of Study.
You will undertake a critical review of the literature related to a selected topic or
question. The outcome of your review will offer an evidence-base on which you can
develop a research aim/question or hypothesis to explore in Assessment 3.


GUIDELINES FOR THE REVIEW
1. A short informative title
2. A background and rationale (justification)
Provides the reader with a clear idea of what to expect to read. The opening paragraph should identify
the significance of the chosen topic within the current context of nursing practice. This is followed by a
sentence which gives the reader an overall idea of the AIMS of the review.
3. A critical review of research related to your topic:
a. Review question or problem to be explored by the review
b. Literature search strategy (inclusion, exclusion criteria, databases searched, year or other
limits on search, keywords used)
NOTE: it may be necessary to either narrow or broaden your search criteria depending on the
amount of research literature available on your topic.
c. Quality assessment of research literature. Critically analyse and evaluate the selected research
articles in relation to the chosen topic.
d. Extract relevant data from the literature – you may use a summary table if you wish.
e. Synthesise or interpret findings in a way that brings the information together in a coherent way
f. Use this synthesis to summarise the results of the review and directly address the aim(s) of the
review or identify a gap in the research literature
4. Conclusion Conclude by answering your review question and responding to the findings by;
5. Pose a research aim(s)/question(s)/hypothesis that is clearly linked to the topic, question or
problem explored in your critical review of the literature.
NOTE: it is not uncommon to find limited good quality research literature on a topic. If this is the case,
you may want to use the same research question as your literature review and propose to undertake a
more appropriate and higher quality study to investigate this.
6. References APA 6th


Marking: The review must be clear, cohesive, and logical throughout and supported by primary research
articles. Correct citation of all sources is required. The task will be assessed using a marking rubric that is on
the Sydney eLearning site.
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Word Length: 2500 words Weighting: 50%