Improving Here or Knowing Everywhere: Distinguishing Practice Scholarship From Generalizable Research, and Why Nursing Needs Both
Student Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice Program, Aspen University
DNP850: Nursing Practice, Professionalism, and Scholarship
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Improving Here or Knowing Everywhere: Distinguishing Practice Scholarship From Generalizable Research, and Why Nursing Needs Both
DNP students are often told that their projects are not research, a statement that can sound like a demotion. It is better understood as a distinction between two forms of scholarship with different purposes, methods, and ethical requirements. This paper uses Boyer's model of scholarship to describe that distinction, applies it to a single question about follow-up after hospital discharge, explains how the purpose of a project determines whether it requires research review, and defends the value of both forms.
Boyer's Model of Scholarship
Boyer (1990) argued that academic scholarship had been defined too narrowly as research and proposed four interrelated forms. The scholarship of discovery is the pursuit of new knowledge through research. The scholarship of integration makes connections across disciplines and places findings in larger context. The scholarship of application, sometimes called engagement, applies knowledge to consequential problems and allows practice itself to generate new understanding. The scholarship of teaching transforms and extends knowledge through education. Nursing adopted this model to recognize that the practice-focused work of the DNP is scholarship, primarily of application and integration, while the PhD centers on discovery.
One Question, Two Forms
Consider a single concern: patients discharged after heart failure hospitalization often miss early follow-up. The question can be asked in two ways.
As practice scholarship: Can our clinic increase the proportion of heart failure patients seen within 7 days of discharge by scheduling appointments before discharge and offering telehealth visits? The aim is improvement in this setting. The design is iterative: small tests of change, each studied and adjusted, with the follow-up rate plotted monthly against a baseline. The knowledge produced is local and practical, although it may be shared so others can adapt it.
As generalizable research: Does a nurse-led transitional care intervention reduce 30-day readmissions compared with usual care among patients discharged after heart failure hospitalization? The aim is knowledge that applies beyond the study sites. The design might be a randomized trial across several hospitals, with a prespecified hypothesis, sample size calculation, control group, and statistical analysis. The difference is not in the topic but in the purpose: one asks what will work here, the other what is true in general.
Why the Distinction Matters Ethically
The distinction has practical consequences for review. Scholars and clinical leaders brought together to examine the ethics of improvement work described it as the ordinary business of delivering care well: structured, measured efforts to make care better, now, in a particular place. Because of that, they argued, clinicians and patients share a duty to take part, and the bulk of such work is not research on human subjects. Its oversight belongs with the people who already supervise clinical practice, scaled to its risk, rather than with a research ethics board. They also acknowledged a middle ground of projects that are partly both and suggested sorting projects by their features and context (Lynn et al., 2007).
For the clinic project, the purpose is local improvement, the intervention is consistent with accepted practice, patients are not randomized, and the data are those already collected in care. It is quality improvement, and the organization's QI review process applies, though many universities still require DNP students to submit a determination request to confirm that status. The multi-site trial randomizes patients, tests a hypothesis, and aims to generalize, so it requires institutional review board approval and, in most cases, informed consent. Treating a trial as QI to avoid review would violate research ethics; treating every QI project as research would slow improvement without protecting anyone.
Reporting Each Form
The two forms are also reported differently. Research is reported with conventions such as CONSORT for trials, emphasizing the control of bias and the precision of effect estimates. Improvement work is reported with the SQUIRE 2.0 guidelines, which require an account of the problem as it appeared locally, the setting's particular features, what was changed and how the change evolved, and how its effects were studied and measured, so that readers can judge whether and how the change might work elsewhere (Ogrinc et al., 2016). The emphasis on context in SQUIRE reflects the scholarship of application: what worked depended on where it happened.
Rigor in Practice Scholarship
Calling a project quality improvement does not lower the standard of rigor; it changes what rigor means. In the clinic project, rigor means a clearly defined measure, the proportion of heart failure discharges seen within 7 days, with the numerator and denominator specified; a baseline long enough to show normal variation; run or control charts that distinguish real change from noise; documentation of each change and when it began, so that shifts in the data can be linked to specific actions; and attention to balancing measures, such as whether telehealth visits displace in-person visits for patients who need an examination. It also means honesty about limits. Without a control group, a rise in follow-up could reflect a new hospital discharge policy or seasonal variation rather than the project. A rigorous improvement report names such alternative explanations and explains why the evidence favors the project's effect, or admits that it cannot. These are the standards DNP projects should be judged by.
Defending Both
Nursing needs both forms. Without discovery, practice would have no tested interventions to apply; the transitional care models DNP projects implement came from trials. Without application, discoveries would sit in journals while patients continued to miss follow-up. Practice scholarship also feeds discovery: when many clinics report improvement projects with their context, patterns emerge that suggest new research questions, such as why telehealth follow-up works in some populations and not others. The central point of Boyer's model was that these forms are equally legitimate and interdependent (Boyer, 1990). The DNP's work is not lesser research; it is a different and necessary scholarship.
Conclusion
Practice scholarship and generalizable research differ in purpose, design, ethical review, and reporting, not in rigor or importance. Asking the same question about post-discharge follow-up in both forms shows that the DNP project's aim, improvement in a particular setting, is what makes it quality improvement and what makes it valuable. Understanding the distinction allows DNP-prepared nurses to design projects correctly, seek the right review, report them well, and work alongside nurse scientists whose discoveries they bring into practice.
References
Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Lynn, J., Baily, M. A., Bottrell, M., Jennings, B., Levine, R. J., Davidoff, F., Casarett, D., Corrigan, J., Fox, E., Wynia, M. K., Agich, G. J., O'Kane, M., Speroff, T., Schyve, P., Batalden, P., Tunis, S., Berlinger, N., Cronenwett, L., Fitzmaurice, J. M., ... James, B. (2007). The ethics of using quality improvement methods in health care. Annals of Internal Medicine, 146(9), 666-673. https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-146-9-200705010-00155
Ogrinc, G., Davies, L., Goodman, D., Batalden, P., Davidoff, F., & Stevens, D. (2016). SQUIRE 2.0 (Standards for QUality Improvement Reporting Excellence): Revised publication guidelines from a detailed consensus process. BMJ Quality & Safety, 25(12), 986-992. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2015-004411
How this DNP 850 Module 3 example is structured
DNP850 Module 3 work often separates practice scholarship from generalizable research and defends both. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so check your classroom for the exact prompt. This example defines Boyer's forms of scholarship, frames one question both ways, explains the ethical review each needs and how each is reported, and argues for their interdependence.
DNP850 Module 3 questions, answered
What does DNP850 Module 3 usually ask for?
The module often asks you to distinguish practice scholarship, such as quality improvement, from generalizable research and to explain the value of each. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so your classroom's instructions govern.
What are Boyer's four forms of scholarship?
Discovery, the pursuit of new knowledge through research; integration, connecting findings across disciplines; application or engagement, applying knowledge to real problems; and teaching, transforming knowledge through education.
Does a DNP quality improvement project need IRB review?
Most quality improvement is not human subjects research and is overseen through professional and organizational review, but projects that randomize patients or aim to produce generalizable knowledge require IRB review. Many universities ask DNP students to obtain a formal determination.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.