Student-Centered Reading Using PDF Software as an Innovative Teaching Strategy in Graduate Nursing Education

Student engagement in scholarly reading and critical thinking contributes to nursing science. However, graduate students often lack the skills and experience needed to read and analyze scholarly writings in depth. This case example describes use of portable document format technology with reading prompts to improve student scholarship in a master of science in nursing program. Theory and research guided development of the visible reading innovation. Student work with this pilot assignment sequence indicates an increase in student engagement with the text, as evidenced by student comment content, comment spacing throughout the text, and text integration into a summative writing assignment.