What is it about?
This chapter explored how undergraduate nursing students in Türkiye developed their academic reading and writing skills in English during COVID-19, a time marked by information overload and misinformation, which is described as unprecedented in history. The “Reading in English for Nursing” course was tailored with a learner-centered and humanistic approach, allowing students to improve their academic writing to tackle misinformation by learning and disseminating accurate, science-based knowledge about COVID-19. The course integrated product, process, and genre writing approaches while involving students in co-designing assessment criteria to assess their understanding of COVID-19.
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Why is it important?
This study is significant because it demonstrates a unique and timely educational response to a global crisis. By integrating cognitive and affective domains through a humanistic approach, this study supported students’ academic progress and helped manage psychological challenges during COVID-19. It highlights the vitality of critical needs analysis and flexible curriculum design in unexpected crises. The chapter contributes to the limited literature on academic writing assessment in COVID-19 contexts. It is a model for how educators can adapt teaching methods to support learners’ well-being and motivation while maintaining academic rigor.
Perspectives
As a course coordinator, I experienced firsthand how critical it was to listen to students’ emotional and educational needs during an unprecedented global health crisis. Designing the course in collaboration with students allowed us to create a more embracing and empowering learning environment. Seeing students become more engaged, autonomous, and confident in their ability to process complex information in English was deeply rewarding. The humanistic and learner-centered approach became more than a teaching method, a form of mutual resilience. This experience has shaped my understanding of what it truly means to teach with empathy, flexibility, and purpose during challenging times. P.S. In addition to this chapter, I trained undergraduate medical students after reviewing literature on COVID-19 to give a talk for an online international student event titled "The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Higher Education Worldwide: A Student Perspective" on how to collaborate worldwide during a crisis and why we must learn and disseminate accurate information: https://emirdag.net.tr/2020/09/30/tebrikler-melek/
Dr Neslihan Onder-Ozdemir
Bursa Uludağ University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Assessment of Academic Writing for Undergraduate Nursing Students during COVID-19, January 2025, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.4324/9781003398172-35.
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