DNP 852B Module 8 Reflection After the Defense Example

What the Defense Taught Me: A Reflection on Presenting a Pediatric Asthma DNP Project

Student Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice Program, Aspen University

DNP 852B: Project Dissemination

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

What the Defense Taught Me: A Reflection on Presenting a Pediatric Asthma DNP Project

The defense of my DNP project took place three days before this reflection was written. The committee approved the project, a program of nurse-led asthma visits for children, with minor revisions. Writing soon afterward, while the questions and my answers are still clear, is meant to turn the experience into learning I can use. This paper follows a simple reflective sequence: what happened, what I felt and noticed, what went well and badly, what the experience means and what I will do next. It is written in the first person.

What Happened

The defense lasted 60 minutes: a 20-minute presentation of thirteen slides followed by 40 minutes of questions from the three committee members, with the site mentor and two clinic nurses attending. The committee asked eleven questions. Seven were on my prepared list, including how I knew the visit caused the improvement, whether regression to the mean explained part of it and what the program cost. Four were not. The committee approved the project with two revisions: report cost per child enrolled, and state more plainly in chapter three that the comparison was each child's own prior period rather than a separate group.

The chair signed the approval form that afternoon, and the revisions are due within two weeks.

What I Felt and Noticed

I was calmer than I expected during the prepared questions and least steady during one I had not anticipated: whether the nurses would have delivered the visit as faithfully without a student watching. My first instinct was to defend the fidelity data. I noticed the instinct, paused, and instead agreed that the question was fair and that the data could not answer it fully, since fidelity was measured while I was present. The committee member nodded and moved on. I also noticed how much the presence of the two clinic nurses mattered. When the chair asked what had made the program work, I turned the question to one of them, and that nurse's answer about owning the school plans carried more weight than anything on my slides.

The Questions I Had Not Expected

The four unexpected questions were the most useful part of the defense. Besides the question about fidelity without a student present, the committee asked whether any family had declined the visit and why, whether the school nurses had given feedback, and whether the plan template could be used for children with other chronic conditions. I had answers to the second and third from the log, but I had not thought about the fourth at all. It suggested a direction for the clinic that I had missed: the template and the teach-back standard could serve children with other conditions that depend on devices and daily routines. I said so honestly, as an idea worth testing rather than a finding.

What Went Well and What Did Not

Three things went well. The limits slide, placed before the questions, meant the committee spent less time pressing on the design and more on implications. The prepared answers were short, and each pointed to evidence. And the decision to end with a request, support for a measured start at the second clinic, gave the discussion a practical end. Two things went less well. I had not prepared cost per child, although it is a simple calculation, and I had to work it out aloud. And one answer about school sharing ran too long because I tried to explain the confounding in detail, when a single sentence would have done.

What the Defense Revealed

The defense showed me that the committee's central concern was not whether the results were impressive but whether I understood what they could and could not show. Single-group designs are open to several alternative explanations (Harris et al., 2006), and the committee wanted to hear me name them before they did. It also showed that leadership in this project had been less about the plan I wrote than about the people who carried it out. The fairest answers I gave were the ones that credited them. Reviews of reflection in the health professions describe it as central to professional competence, though they note that its evidence base is still developing (Mann et al., 2009). For me, the value of reflecting here is concrete: it points to specific habits to keep and change.

Links to My Development

The national competency framework places personal, professional and leadership development among its ten domains (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2021). The defense tested that domain directly. I learned that I can hold my ground on evidence while conceding what it cannot show, that I tend to over-explain when uncertain, and that sharing credit strengthens rather than weakens a leader's position. These are lessons I would not have drawn from the data alone.

Each lesson has already changed how I plan the staff presentation next month.

What I Will Do Next

The plan has four parts. Within a week, I will add cost per child to chapter four and revise the comparison wording in chapter three, then send both to the chair. Within a month, I will present the findings to the clinic's staff as the dissemination plan sets out, with the nurses presenting the implementation lessons. In my next role, I will prepare cost figures for every proposal from the start, since leaders and committees ask for them. And I will practice giving one-sentence answers to complex questions, with a fuller explanation offered only if asked.

I will also thank each committee member and the clinic team in writing, naming what each contributed.

Conclusion

The defense confirmed that the project was sound and showed where my own habits need work. It taught me that a committee values honest limits and shared credit, and that preparation matters most for the questions I had not expected. I will carry those lessons into the revisions and into the leadership role that follows.

The revisions are already under way.

References

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2021). The essentials: Core competencies for professional nursing education.

Harris, A. D., McGregor, J. C., Perencevich, E. N., Furuno, J. P., Zhu, J., Peterson, D. E., & Finkelstein, J. (2006). The use and interpretation of quasi-experimental studies in medical informatics. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 13(1), 16-23. https://doi.org/10.1197/jamia.M1749

Mann, K., Gordon, J., & MacLeod, A. (2009). Reflection and reflective practice in health professions education: A systematic review. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 14(4), 595-621. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-007-9090-2