150 ■ II: ROLES FOR DOCTORAL ADVANCED NURSING PRACTICE
with findings from the 2010 Carnegie Report (Benner et al., 2010). To expect concurrent
attainment of both sets of skills may be unrealistic, despite the proliferation of BS–DNP
Programs.
■ THE CONCEPT OF SCHOLARSHIP AND THE DNP ESSENTIALS
When the AACN issued their position statement on the DNP in 2004 and later published
the DNP Essentials in 2006, the intent was likely to articulate and define their vision of
both DNP education and their intent for the DNP role that would follow. Their publica-
tions were to serve as a guiding light for nursing programs throughout the nation to
establish and refine their DNP programs. In all of the AACN’s well-intended and truly
inspired documents, however, there may in fact have been a lost opportunity to very
clearly state for posterity what the expected level of “scholarship” for DNP programs
was intended to be, at least as seen in 2006.
For example, while there are many references to Boyer’s model of Scholarship
(Boyer, 1990) throughout the Essentials document (2006) that clearly spoke to research-
focused programs such as “Scholarship of Discovery” and practice-focused programs
such as “Scholarship of Application,” there appears only a brief sentence regarding the
final “project” for the DNP degree, which may in fact be at the root of some of the
variation in levels of expected scholarship seen today in DNP programs. For the sake
of clarity, while there has been much discussion and debate over the last several years
regarding the appropriate level of “rigor” for DNP programs, including elsewhere in
this chapter, we would like to propose an alternative parameter to evaluate DNP pro-
grams, specifically scholarship rather than rigor. As rigor tends to be synonymous with
traditional research methodology in the academic setting, scholarship is a broader con-
cept, which may actually lend some clarity to our current dilemma.
AACN (2006) states, “For practice doctorates, requiring a dissertation or other orig-
inal research is contrary to the intent of the DNP” (p. 20). The paragraph goes on to offer
alternative suggestions that the final project may take. Although it can be inferred that
the intent was to guide and clarify, it may be that this statement and this entire section
of the document have contributed toward much of the resultant confusion. Although
many agree that research dissertations should be the “gold-standard” outcome mea-
sure for programs focused on scholarship of discovery, perhaps it was too soon for the
AACN to seek to define the gold-standard outcome measure for programs focused on
scholarship of application. AACN sought to correct these impressions most recently
in their new white paper: New White Paper on the DNP: Current Issues and Clarifying
Recommendations. The very first point addressed is “DNP Graduate Scholarship.” In
which they indicate that DNP scholarship, rather than focusing on generalizability (the
purview of the research-based doctoral program), instead contributes to enhanced out-
comes. The DNP task force concludes that graduates of both types of doctoral programs
are prepared to generate new knowledge, but that the DNP graduate is prepared to
generate new knowledge through “innovation of practice change, the translation of evi-
dence, and the implementation of quality improvement processes in specific practice
settings, systems, or with specific populations to improve health or health outcomes.”
They further propose that “Organizational and systems leadership knowledge and
skills are critical for DNP graduates to develop and evaluate new models of care deliv-
ery and to create and sustain change at the organization and systems levels.” Neither
type of knowledge generation should be viewed as superior since “the application and
translation of evidence into practice is a vital and necessary skill that is currently lacking
in the healthcare environment and nursing profession.” Thus, the DNP task force sends