General Requirements of Doctoral Degree

Requirements listed here below in addition to Graduate School requirements stated in the Graduate Bulletin http://bulletins.psu.edu/bulletins/whitebook/. 

Students may enter the D.N.P. program directly from a B.S.N. or following completion of a Master's degree in nursing. For the B.S.N. to the D.N.P. for nurse administrators, a core of master’s courses including nursing issues, theory, and research is required. A minimum of 61 credits, 1000 hours of practicum time, and a project is required. The master's in nursing to D.N.P. program requires a minimum of 30 post-masters credits completed at Penn State. The curriculum is individualized based on previous coursework and number of practicum hours completed during the master’s program. A maximum of 550 practicum hours from the previous master’s program will be accepted to fulfill the 1000 hours of required practicum.

For both entry options, students are required to participate in two (2) Intensives offered at the University Park. The first Intensive is scheduled August, Semester I for full time M.S.N. to D.N.P. students, and semester III for part time M.S.N. to D.N.P. students and all B.S.N. to D.N.P. students. The second Intensive is scheduled near the end of the subsequent Spring semester. In addition to coursework, all students are required to complete a series of three benchmarks, Qualifying Examination, Comprehensive Examination, and a Final Oral Presentation.  

ENGLISH COMPETENCE 

A candidate for a doctoral degree at Penn State is required to demonstrate high-level competence in the use of the English language. This includes reading, writing, and speaking, as part of the language and communication requirements for the doctoral degree. Programs are expected to establish mechanisms for assessing and improving competence of both domestic and international students. Assessments should include pieces of original writing. Programs and advisers should identify any deficiencies before or at the time of the qualifying examination and direct students into appropriate remedial activities. The program must formally attest competence before the doctoral comprehensive examination is scheduled. (International students should note that passage of the minimal TOEFL requirement does not demonstrate the level of competence expected of a doctoral degree from Penn State.) 

MINIMUM CREDITS REQUIRED 

The D.N.P. degree requires a minimum of 38 semester credits beyond the master’s degree, of which a minimum of 30 credits must be earned at Penn State, or a minimum of 61 credits beyond the B.S.N. Graduate credits earned at other institutions may be offered in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the D.N.P. degree. The Director of the D.N.P. program will evaluate courses accepted for transfer credit individually relative to the program requirements and the student’s plan of study.  

TIME LIMITATIONS 

The Graduate Faculty of the College of Nursing adopted a policy to ensure that doctoral studies are based on current science and are completed in a timely fashion (Graduate Affairs; March 31, 2014). Under this policy, a D.N.P. student is required to complete the qualifying examination within three semesters of admission. The program must be completed, including acceptance of the project, within five semesters from the date of successful completion of passing the qualifying examination. All coursework must be completed within 5 years of admission to the D.N.P. program. Students must carefully monitor progression in order to meet this limitation. 

D.N.P. PROJECT 

All candidates for the D.N.P. are required to complete a project. Development of the project proposal is augmented by coursework; however, students must work closely with their adviser throughout the process. The final written project must be approved by the doctoral committee and the Associate Dean for Graduate Education. The student’s final paper must be uploaded to be made publicly available through ScholarSphere: https://scholarsphere.psu.edu/. 

PROJECT GUIDELINES 

Students will design and complete a project derived from their clinical specialty. It is expected that the student will provide an insightful approach to a clinical or practice problem, which demonstrates critical thinking and analysis along with creative expression.   All D.N.P. Projects should (AACN, 2015):  

1. Focus on a change that impacts healthcare outcomes either through direct or indirect care. 
 

2. Have a system (micro-, meso-, or macro- level) or population/aggregate focus. 
 

3. Demonstrate implementation in the appropriate arena or area of practice. 
 

4. Include a plan for sustainability (e.g. financial, systems or political realities, not only theoretical abstractions). 
 

5. Include an evaluation of processes and/or outcomes (formative or summative). D.N.P. 
Projects should be designed so that processes and/or outcomes will be evaluated to guide practice and policy. Clinical significance is as important in guiding practice as statistical significance is in evaluating research. 
 

6. Provide a foundation for future practice scholarship (publishing, presenting, replication, practice change initiatives). 

Types of project topics may include (Moran et al., 2016):  

1. Clinical or practice-based inquiry (practice change initiative)   

2. A quality improvement/Performance management project  

3. Healthcare delivery innovation (an evidence-based practice model change) 

4. Design and evaluate new models of care  

5. Implement and evaluate innovative uses for technology to enhance or evaluate care 

6. Design and evaluate programs 

7. Conduct financial analyses to compare care models and potential savings 

8. Healthcare policy 

NOTE:  Educational interventions alone do not constitute a D.N.P. project. (Review the IOM (2011) Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust.). Education alone results only in a 4-6% change of a practice change.  When combined with other methods (audits, reminders, feedback, texts, phone calls, etc.) they impact practice change and improve healthcare outcomes (IOM, 2011).  The majority of D.N.P. projects have a component of education incorporated into the project. D.N.P. Projects are NOT intended to develop D.N.P. students in the role of nurse educators (AACN, 2015). 

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT 

Before students enter the D.N.P. program, he/she should reflect of an area of interest for a D.N.P. project.  Most likely this area will start broad and need to be limited to a smaller population/site/subset in order to fit within the timeframe of a D.N.P. program.  The goal of the D.N.P. program is not to necessarily solve a huge problem, but to learn the D.N.P. process in order to be able to replicate it on a larger scale, repetitively as a D.N.P. prepared nurse.  Within the area of interest, students should focus on a small problem which needs to be addressed.  For example, the broad problem may be “pediatric obesity”, but a more specific problem within a practice setting might be “inadequate screening of pediatric patients for obesity within a community pediatric practice.”  The purpose should be clear, concise, and realistic to be achieved within a D.N.P. program timeframe.  The time period of implementation within a D.N.P. program is about 3-4 months. 

Students will meet with their adviser regularly throughout the program to begin planning the project. The project proposal is developed through NURS 831 and 837. Project implementation, evaluation, and dissemination occurs throughout NURS 835.  

FORMATTING GUIDELINES 

The project proposal and final project paper will be developed and written in concordance with the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE) guidelines. The SQUIRE 2.0 Guidelines are designed for reporting of quality improvement and evidence-based practice projects. The guidelines can be found at http://www.squire-statement.org  

INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD (IRB) 

“The AACN Task Force states that while new knowledge gained from D.N.P. scholarship activities may be transferable, it should not be considered generalizable, as is knowledge yielded from the traditional research doctorate, yet translational research also has value in the larger healthcare environment” (Alexander, 2016). 

WHY DO PENN STATE D.N.P. STUDENTS COMPLETE THE IRB PROCESS? 

At Penn State and many other universities, the IRB review is not necessary, since projects do not meet the qualities of research.  If the project was deemed as research, an IRB review would be required. Regardless, D.N.P.s students must submit IRB queries.  Students go through the IRB submission process to understand the process for the future, especially if they collaborate with Ph.Ds.  D.N.P.s are not creating new knowledge, but instead taking knowledge that is generated through research and translating it into practice through projects. In addition, the D.N.P. student is expected to disseminate their work. Many scholarly journals require that evidence-based practice projects, not only research studies, undergo IRB review to be considered for publication.  

Some D.N.P. scholarly projects involve the use of human subjects. In that case, students will pursue additional approvals from the Office of Research Protections. This process will be completed in collaboration with the student’s D.N.P. adviser. 

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS RESEARCH 

Any use of human subjects, animals, biohazardous materials, or radioisotopes for research purposes must be reviewed and approved by the Office for Research Protections (ORP) before the research is conducted. This approval cannot be obtained retroactively and cannot be granted by the advisers or doctoral committees.  

This review is part of the University’s policy on ethics in research. It provides legal assurance for the commitment that the University has made to the federal government regarding the protection of human and animal subjects. Violations of the University’s policies on these matters are a serious breach of the trust placed in researchers by the scholarly community and society. 

If you have questions regarding this requirement or how to obtain the necessary approvals, please contact: 

Office for Research Protections.
212 Kern Building
University Park, PA 16802 

Tel #: 814.865.1775 

Fax #: 814.863.8699 

E-Mail: ORProtections@psu.edu 

HUMAN SUBJECTS REVIEW 

All research proposals involving human subjects, including the secondary use of previously collected data, must be submitted to the Office for Research Protections (ORP), via CATS (Centralized Application Tracking System) for review. See https://www.research.psu.edu/irb/cats for complete instructions. According to Title 45 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 46.102(d), research is defined as a systematic investigation designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge (Federal Register, 56, p. 28013). 

Dissemination of findings to a scientific audience is a sufficient, but not a necessary, criterion for defining research. Dissemination includes, but is not limited to, doctoral theses; paper or poster presentation at a scientific meeting, conference, or competition; submission to or publication, paper or electronic, in a scientific journal; and Internet postings. If the proposed project falls under this definition of research, review and approval of a human subjects’ research protocol by ORP is required. Information about human subject’s proposal submissions are available at: http://www.research.psu.edu/orp.  

The materials to be submitted for review to the ORP committee should be prepared according to established University guidelines. The application requires the approval of the doctoral committee chair and the Associate Dean of Graduate Education and Research of the College of Nursing. When approval has been granted by the ORP, the student may commence gathering data or conducting the project. A copy of the approval letter received from the Office for Research Protections should be forwarded to the Chair of the student’s committee.  

Research involving utilization of other facilities may require approval from that institution as well as Penn State. Please be sure to obtain approval from all institutions involved before proceeding with any aspect of your research or project.