| Course | NURS 600 Evaluation Strategies for Nurse Educators (NURS600) |
|---|---|
| Module/Week | 2 |
| Assignment | Written Assignment 1 on Test Planning and Multiple-Choice Items |
| Paper type | Written assignment (3+ pages, 3+ references plus textbook and Bible) |
| Length | about 1,003 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references. Course guide: at least 3 pages excluding the title and reference pages, in current APA, with 3 or more references beyond the course textbook and the Bible |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| Points | 75 |
| School | Liberty University Online |
| Program | MSN |
| Where it sits | Module/Week 2 in Liberty's published NURS 600 course guide; current sections can differ |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NURS 600 Week 2
Written Assignment 1: A Test Blueprint and Six Multiple-Choice and Multiple-Response Items for a Heart Failure Unit Exam
[Student Name]
School of Nursing, Liberty University
NURS 600: Evaluation Strategies for Nurse Educators
Written Assignment 1
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The course, exam and items are composites written for a model assignment; follow the prompt your course provides for Written Assignment 1.
Written Assignment 1: A Test Blueprint and Six Multiple-Choice and Multiple-Response Items for a Heart Failure Unit Exam
Purpose and Outcomes of the Exam
The exam is a 40-item unit test given after a three-week heart failure unit in a junior-level medical-surgical nursing course. Oermann and Gaberson (2017) advise that test planning begin with the purpose of the test and the outcomes it should measure, because the purpose determines the type of items and the level of thinking they should require. This exam is summative for the unit, contributing 15% of the course grade, and it is also meant to prepare students for the clinical judgment questions they will face on licensure. It samples four outcomes: explaining the pathophysiology of heart failure, recognizing signs of worsening heart failure, managing heart failure medications safely, and teaching patients self-care for discharge.
Test Blueprint
| Outcome | Remember or understand | Apply or analyze | Evaluate or create | Total items |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Explain pathophysiology of heart failure | 4 | 4 | 0 | 8 |
| Recognize worsening heart failure | 2 | 8 | 2 | 12 |
| Manage medications safely | 2 | 7 | 3 | 12 |
| Teach self-care for discharge | 1 | 5 | 2 | 8 |
| Total | 9 | 24 | 7 | 40 |
The blueprint gives the most items to recognizing deterioration and managing medications, the outcomes where errors cause the most harm, and places 31 of 40 items, or 78%, at the application level or above. A blueprint is a promise to students that the test will measure what the unit emphasized, in the proportions it emphasized it.
Sample Items and Rationales
The following items illustrate the blueprint. Correct answers are marked.
- Item 1. A client with heart failure gained 1.5 kg since yesterday and reports needing three pillows to sleep. What is the nurse's first action? A. Encourage the client to sit in a recliner tonight. B. Assess lung sounds and oxygen saturation. (correct) C. Teach the client to limit sodium to 2 g a day. D. Document the weight in the electronic record.
- Item 2. Which finding in a client taking furosemide 40 mg twice daily means the nurse should withhold this dose and call the prescriber? A. Serum potassium of 3.0 mEq/L. (correct) B. Urine output of 70 mL per hour. C. Blood pressure of 112/70 mm Hg. D. Serum sodium of 138 mEq/L.
- Item 3. Which statements by a client preparing for discharge show understanding of heart failure self-care? Select all that apply. A. "I will weigh myself every morning after I urinate." (correct) B. "I will call if I gain more than 2 pounds in a day." (correct) C. "I can stop the water pill when my ankles look normal." D. "I will check food labels for sodium." (correct) E. "I should drink at least three liters of fluid every day."
- Item 4. The heart pumps less blood forward in systolic heart failure. Which compensatory response explains the client's fluid retention? A. Activation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system. (correct) B. Increased release of atrial natriuretic peptide. C. Decreased secretion of antidiuretic hormone. D. Vasodilation of renal arterioles.
- Item 5. A client receiving digoxin reports nausea and seeing yellow halos around lights. What should the nurse do next? A. Give an antiemetic and recheck in an hour. B. Withhold the digoxin and check the most recent digoxin level. (correct) C. Reassure the client that vision changes are common. D. Give the dose with food to reduce nausea.
- Item 6. Which client should the nurse see first after receiving report? A. A client with heart failure whose weight is unchanged since yesterday. B. A client reporting new frothy sputum and an oxygen saturation of 88%. (correct) C. A client asking for a low-sodium diet menu. D. A client due for a morning dose of carvedilol with a pulse of 64.
Each item follows guidelines from Oermann and Gaberson (2017). Every stem poses a full problem that a prepared student could answer with the options covered, and they ask for the best or first action, which requires judgment rather than recall. Distractors come from errors students actually make, such as treating a symptom without assessment in Item 1 or stopping a diuretic when edema resolves in Item 3. Options are similar in length and grammatically consistent with the stem, avoiding the clue of a long correct answer. Item 3 uses the multiple-response format to assess several self-care behaviors at once, and Item 6 asks students to prioritize, a skill central to clinical judgment.
Reviewing Items for Flaws
Even careful item writers miss flaws, which is why a structured review matters. Simms et al. (2026) asked 33 nursing faculty to rate the quality of NCLEX-style items with a structured rubric and compared their ratings with seven artificial intelligence configurations. Individual faculty showed poor reliability and agreed with expert classifications only 47.3% of the time, while the AI configurations showed good reliability and about 69.5% agreement. The authors recommended a hybrid approach in which AI screens items and faculty make final decisions. For this exam, the items would be reviewed by a second faculty member using a written checklist before use, and any item that more than one reviewer questions would be revised.
Scoring the Multiple-Response Item
Item 3 could be scored all-or-nothing or with partial credit. The Next Generation NCLEX uses partial credit for some item types, and Norton and Yockey (2026) compared unit exam scores of students repeating a third-semester course under traditional and partial credit scoring. Scores improved significantly on all four unit exams under partial credit, yet the repeating students' averages did not consistently exceed the cohort's, and the authors found no evidence of grade inflation. Based on that evidence, Item 3 would be scored with plus-minus partial credit, awarding a point for each correct selection and subtracting a point for each incorrect one, with a minimum of zero.
Connecting the Unit Exam to Licensure and Fairness
Unit exams are part of a chain that ends in licensure. Shah et al. (2026) gathered outcomes for 1,753 students in 32 programs and found that those who reached an average score of 850 or higher on a widely used standardized exit exam passed the Next Generation NCLEX on the first attempt at a rate of 98%, and that test preparation and remediation policies were associated with more students reaching that benchmark. Well-built unit exams that require clinical judgment are one of the ways faculty prepare students long before the exit exam. Fairness matters at every step. Proverbs 11:1 says that "a just weight is his delight" (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016), and a test that measures what was taught, at the level it was taught, is a just weight.
References
English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)
Norton, L. M., & Yockey, J. (2026). Partial credit scoring: A helping hand or a crutch? The Journal of Nursing Education, 65(8), 502-504. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20260224-05
Oermann, M. H., & Gaberson, K. B. (2017). Evaluation and testing in nursing education (5th ed.). Springer Publishing Company.
Shah, M., Baker, R., Granville, P., Lander, L., & Bussard, M. (2026). Standardized exit exams and Next Generation NCLEX-RN: Examining policies and success outcomes. The Journal of Nursing Education, 65(1), 5-11. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20250731-02
Simms, R. C., Hensel, D., Cavanaugh, R., Fox, A., & Kumar, A. (2026). Human vs AI in NCLEX-style item review: Reliability, agreement, and efficiency using the NEIA rubric. Nurse Education in Practice, 94, Article 104897. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2026.104897
What the NURS 600 Week 2 instructions ask
The five NURS 600 written assignments share one set of rules: each runs at least three pages without counting the title page or references, follows current APA, and brings in three or more outside sources, with the Oermann and Gaberson text and Scripture not counted toward that three. The topic for each comes from the course shell. Written Assignment 1 is due in Module/Week 2, as students read Oermann and Gaberson's chapters on planning for testing, writing true-false and matching items, and writing multiple-choice and multiple-response items. Prompts for this week therefore usually have students plan a test around outcomes and to write items that follow item-writing principles, explaining their choices.
How this NURS 600 Week 2 example is built
The paper moves from planning to writing. It first states the exam's purpose and the outcomes it samples, then presents a blueprint table that distributes 40 items across four outcomes and three cognitive levels, with most items at the application level and above. Six sample items follow, each with its stem, options and correct answer, and a short rationale explaining how it follows item-writing guidelines, such as a stem that poses a complete question and distractors drawn from common errors. A section on reviewing items for flaws uses a 2026 reliability study of an item review rubric. The paper closes by connecting the unit exam to licensure preparation and to fairness toward students.
NURS 600 Week 2 grading rubric: where the points go
The first written assignment is usually graded on correct application of test-planning principles, the quality of the sample items, the accuracy of the rationales, integration of at least three recent references beyond the textbook and the Bible, and APA form over at least three pages. For a test-planning paper, graders look for a blueprint that matches outcomes to item numbers and cognitive levels and adds up correctly. Items earn credit when stems are clear, distractors are plausible, there is one defensible correct answer, and higher-level items require application rather than recall. Rationales should name the guideline each choice follows, which shows understanding beyond simply writing questions.
NURS 600 Week 2 help: mistakes that cost points
Points are most often lost on this assignment for items that test recall while claiming to test application, for distractors that are obviously wrong or longer than the answer, and for blueprints whose numbers do not add up. Some students write items with negative stems such as "all of the following except" without highlighting the negative, or include "all of the above." Others describe test planning without producing a blueprint at all. Build the blueprint first, write items to fill it, check each item against the textbook's guidelines, explain the reasoning for every item, and confirm that your references are recent and beyond the textbook. A quick peer review of your items by a classmate often catches flaws you cannot see in your own writing.
Related NURS 600 sample papers
Other NURS 600 weeks
- NURS 600 Week 1: Reflection Paper 1
- NURS 600 Week 3: Written Assignment 2
- NURS 600 Week 4: Written Assignment 3
- NURS 600 Week 5: Written Assignment 4
- NURS 600 Week 6: Philosophy of Clinical Evaluation
- NURS 600 Week 7: Written Assignment 5
- NURS 600 Week 8: Reflection Paper 2
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NURS 600 Week 2 questions, answered
What is NURS 600 Written Assignment 1?
The first of five written assignments, worth 75 points in Module/Week 2, usually focused on test planning and writing selected-response items, at least three pages in APA with three references beyond the textbook and the Bible.
Where can I find a free NURS 600 Week 2 sample paper?
The full NURS 600 Week 2 assignment with a test blueprint, six sample items and their rationales is presented on this page, references included, at no cost.
What is a test blueprint in nursing education?
A table that maps the outcomes or content areas of a test against cognitive levels and shows how many items will assess each, so the test samples what was taught in the intended proportions.
How do you write a good multiple-choice question for nursing?
Write a stem that poses a complete question, give one clearly best answer, make distractors plausible by basing them on common errors, keep options similar in length, and avoid all of the above and negative stems.
What is a multiple-response item?
An item that asks students to select all options that apply, which can assess more complex knowledge; it may be scored all-or-nothing or with partial credit, as on the Next Generation NCLEX.
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