Concept Mapping Assignment
How to pick your concept, fill in every section of the worksheet — SBAR, Recognize Cues, Analyze Cues, Prioritize Hypotheses, Generate Solutions, Take Action, Evaluate Outcomes — write proper SMART goals, and cite everything in APA 7.
The template looks simple. Six boxes, some arrows, a references page. But when you sit down to actually fill it in, it stops being simple fast. Which cues matter? What’s the difference between recognizing and analyzing? How specific does a SMART goal need to be? This guide walks through every section of the Nightingale College DFC Concept Mapping Worksheet so you know exactly what goes where — and why.
What This Guide Covers
Step 1: Picking Your Concept from HESI
This is where you start — not with the template, but with your HESI Dashboard. Log in and pull up your performance data. You’re looking for Weak Performance Areas. Those are the concepts flagged in your results as areas where your score fell below the benchmark.
The concept you pick for your map has to come from that list. You can only use each concept once per course. That’s not just a rule — it’s the point of the assignment. You’re meant to work on what you actually struggled with, not coast on something you already know.
Some students pick a concept they feel comfortable with because it’s easier to write about. That defeats the purpose and risks using a concept that either isn’t in your weak areas or has already been used in a previous map. Pull the dashboard first, write down which concepts are flagged, then pick from that list.
Step 2: Choosing the Right Client
The client can be real, past, or simulated — a patient you cared for in clinical, someone from a previous encounter, or a simulated patient from your VR or skills lab. What matters is the fit between the client and your chosen concept.
Glucose Regulation
Pick a diabetic patient — ideally Type 2, with blood sugar issues and at least one complication like neuropathy, poor wound healing, or renal changes. The more concrete the clinical picture, the richer your cues.
Perfusion
Heart failure, peripheral vascular disease, or post-MI presentations work well here. Look for a patient with edema, low EF, elevated BNP, or signs of poor tissue perfusion. The cardiac and vascular cues should drive the map.
Gas Exchange
COPD exacerbation, pneumonia, or asthma are the go-to presentations. You want a patient with abnormal O2 saturation, respiratory rate changes, abnormal ABGs, or audible breath sounds like wheezing or crackles.
The instructions are specific: if you pick Glucose Regulation, your entire map stays focused on diabetes-related cues and interventions. Perfusion doesn’t belong there unless it directly connects — for example, poor circulation to the feet in a diabetic patient. Don’t let the map drift into unrelated systems. The concept you chose is the lens for everything.
Filling in SBAR Client Information
SBAR stands for Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation. It’s a structured communication tool — widely used in actual clinical handoffs — and the assignment uses it to organize the client picture before you get into clinical judgment. Each box has a distinct scope.
| SBAR Component | What to Include | What Does NOT Belong Here |
|---|---|---|
| Situation (S) | Chief complaint — why is the patient here right now? One to three sentences. “56-year-old male presenting with blood glucose of 380 mg/dL, polyuria, and fatigue. Reports not taking metformin for two weeks.” | Full medical history, your assessment findings, lab details — those go in B and A |
| Background (B) | Past medical history, relevant diagnoses, current medications, allergies, significant social history. “PMH: Type 2 DM diagnosed 2018. Medications: metformin 1000mg BID (non-adherent), lisinopril 10mg. A1C 9.5% at last visit.” | Today’s vital signs or lab results — those are Assessment data, not background |
| Assessment (A) | Your clinical findings right now — vitals, lab values, physical exam findings. “BP 148/92, HR 98, RR 18, Temp 98.8°F, SpO2 98%. BMP: glucose 380 mg/dL, BUN 22, Cr 1.1. Skin dry and warm. Bilateral lower extremity paresthesia reported.” | Interventions, recommendations, or treatment plans |
| Recommendation (R) | What needs to happen — the immediate plan or what you’re requesting. “Initiate insulin sliding scale, IV fluid replacement, dietary consult, diabetes education, and endocrinology referral.” | Detailed SMART goals or nursing interventions — those are for the lower sections of the map |
The “Concept of the Map” Box
This small box sits next to the SBAR section. It’s asking for one thing: the name of the concept you chose from your HESI weak performance areas. Just write it clearly — “Glucose Regulation,” “Perfusion,” or “Gas Exchange.” That’s it. It anchors the whole map and tells the reader what lens you’re using to interpret everything else.
Whatever concept you write in that box has to show up consistently throughout every section of the map. If you wrote “Gas Exchange” but your cues, hypotheses, and interventions are all about heart failure without a respiratory connection, that’s a mismatch your instructor will catch. The concept is not just a label — it’s the filter for every clinical decision you describe below it.
Recognize Cues vs. Analyze Cues
These two boxes are connected by an arrow on the template for a reason. One feeds the other. But students consistently mix them up or treat them as the same thing. They’re not.
Recognize Cues
This is observation only. You’re listing the data points from your SBAR that stand out as clinically significant — the findings that catch your attention as a nurse. You’re not interpreting yet. Just naming what you see.
- Abnormal lab values (glucose 380 mg/dL, A1C 9.5%)
- Vital sign deviations (HR 98, BP 148/92)
- Patient-reported symptoms (polyuria, fatigue, paresthesia)
- Physical assessment findings (dry skin, warm to touch)
- Medication non-adherence (metformin not taken x2 weeks)
Analyze Cues
Now you interpret what those cues mean. What condition do they point to? What is the pathophysiology? What is the clinical significance of each abnormal finding? You’re moving from “here’s what I see” to “here’s what it means.”
- Glucose 380 mg/dL + non-adherence → hyperglycemia from missed doses
- Polyuria, fatigue → classic hyperglycemia symptoms (osmotic diuresis)
- A1C 9.5% → chronic poor glycemic control over past 3 months
- Paresthesia → early diabetic peripheral neuropathy
- Elevated BP → hypertension common in T2DM; increases complication risk
A good test: if you’re writing something in Recognize Cues that includes a “because” or “suggests,” you’ve crossed into analysis. Move it to Analyze Cues. Keep Recognize Cues purely observational.
Prioritize Hypotheses and Generate Solutions
By the time you reach these boxes, you’ve identified what’s happening. Now you’re ranking the problems and planning responses.
What Is the Primary Problem — and What Comes After?
Your hypotheses are your clinical nursing diagnoses or problem statements, ranked by urgency. List up to three. The first one should be the most immediate and life-threatening or most acutely impactful. For a hyperglycemic diabetic patient: Hypothesis 1 might be impaired glucose regulation related to medication non-adherence, evidenced by glucose 380 mg/dL. Hypothesis 2 could be risk for fluid volume deficit related to osmotic diuresis. Hypothesis 3 might be deficient knowledge related to diabetes self-management. The ranking isn’t arbitrary — it reflects your clinical judgment about what to tackle first.
Use NANDA-I language if your course requires it. Some Nightingale instructors expect formal nursing diagnoses in this box. If yours does, use the three-part format: Problem + Related to (etiology) + As evidenced by (signs/symptoms). Check your rubric.This Is Where SMART Goals Live
Each solution you generate should be a SMART goal — a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound patient outcome statement. The solutions box is not for nursing interventions. Those come in “Take Action.” The solution box answers: what do you want the patient to achieve, and how will you know it happened? Write one SMART goal per prioritized hypothesis, so your solutions map back to your hypotheses in a logical sequence.
Solutions map to hypotheses by number. Solution 1 addresses Hypothesis 1, Solution 2 addresses Hypothesis 2, and so on. If your three hypotheses don’t have matching solutions, the map looks incomplete. The arrows on the template show this flow intentionally.Writing Proper SMART Goals
This is the section students rush — and it shows. Vague goals don’t earn points. Here’s what each letter of SMART actually demands in a nursing context:
Names the exact outcome
Not “the patient will improve.” Specific: “The patient will maintain blood glucose levels between 140–180 mg/dL.” The outcome has to be named precisely.
Has a number or observable indicator
You need something you can actually measure. A glucose range, a pain score, an O2 sat percentage, a weight in pounds. “Feeling better” is not measurable.
Realistic for this patient
Setting a goal of “A1C below 6.5% by discharge” for a patient with A1C 9.5% admitted for two days is not achievable. Match the goal to what’s actually possible in the timeframe.
Tied to the identified problem
The goal must directly address the nursing diagnosis or hypothesis. A glucose goal for a hypothermia problem is not relevant. Stay focused on the concept of your map.
States when the outcome should occur
“Within 24 hours,” “by discharge,” “within 30 minutes of intervention.” Without a time element, the goal has no accountability structure.
What a complete SMART goal looks like
“The patient will demonstrate correct insulin self-injection technique on at least two return demonstrations before hospital discharge.” Every SMART element is present.
Take Action: Nursing Interventions
This section lists what you — the nurse — will actually do to help the patient reach the goals from Generate Solutions. Each action should be specific, evidence-based, and connected to at least one of your prioritized hypotheses. Four actions are listed on the template. Don’t pad with generic tasks.
Make Each Action Clinically Specific
“Monitor blood glucose” is weak. “Monitor fingerstick blood glucose every 4 hours and prior to meals; report values above 250 mg/dL or below 70 mg/dL to the provider per protocol” is an action. The specificity shows clinical judgment, not just a task list.
Include Patient Education as an Action
Teaching is a nursing intervention. For glucose regulation, an education action might be: “Educate patient on the importance of medication adherence for metformin and review proper timing with meals.” For perfusion: “Teach patient to monitor and record daily weight, reporting gains of more than 2 pounds in one day to the provider.” Education is evidence-based and maps to your knowledge-deficit hypothesis.
Tie Actions Back to Your Solutions
Each action should logically support at least one of the SMART goals you wrote in Generate Solutions. If you have a goal about glucose range, your actions should include glucose monitoring, insulin administration, dietary modifications — things that actually move the glucose toward that range. Actions disconnected from goals make the map look fragmented.
Use Active, Nurse-Centric Language
Actions are what the nurse does, not what the patient does. “Administer prescribed bronchodilator therapy via nebulizer and assess respiratory response within 20 minutes of administration” is nurse-centric. “The patient will use their inhaler” is a goal, not an action. Keep the subject of every action sentence as “nurse” or implied “I.”
Evaluate Outcomes
The last box on the map asks whether the interventions worked. This is where you close the loop. Each evaluation statement should directly reference one of your SMART goals and say what actually happened — or what you would look for if this were a real ongoing patient situation.
What a Good Evaluation Looks Like
- References the specific measurable goal: “Patient’s fingerstick glucose readings remained between 140–180 mg/dL for 18 consecutive hours following insulin initiation.”
- States whether the goal was met, partially met, or not met
- Describes observed patient response to interventions: “Patient demonstrated correct insulin injection technique on two return demonstrations prior to discharge.”
- Includes a plan if the goal was not met: “If SpO2 remains below 92% after bronchodilator therapy, escalate oxygen delivery method and reassess in 30 minutes.”
What to Avoid
- Repeating the intervention: “The patient received insulin.” That’s an action, not an evaluation.
- Vague outcomes: “Patient improved.” Improved how? To what value? By when?
- Evaluating something you never set as a goal — if you didn’t write a goal for it, you can’t evaluate it here
- Using future tense: evaluation is about what happened or what you would observe, not what you hope will happen
The Three Common Concepts Explained
Each concept pulls a different clinical picture. Here’s what to keep in mind when building your map around each one.
Glucose Regulation
The core physiological problem is insulin deficiency or resistance leading to hyperglycemia. Your cues will center on blood glucose values, A1C, polyuria, polydipsia, fatigue, and complications like neuropathy or nephropathy. Interventions focus on glycemic monitoring, insulin or oral agent management, dietary teaching, foot care, and self-management education. The concept stays narrow — don’t map every diabetic complication, just the ones directly related to glucose dysregulation in your specific patient.
Key lab to anchor your map: blood glucose and A1C. Everything else (BUN, creatinine, UA) is supporting context — include it in SBAR Assessment but only reference it in the map if it directly connects to glucose regulation.Perfusion
Perfusion is about adequate blood flow delivering oxygen and nutrients to tissues. Heart failure is the most common patient presentation for this concept — reduced EF means reduced cardiac output, which means poor perfusion to organs and periphery. Your cues will include low SpO2, elevated BNP, pedal edema, JVD, fatigue, and dyspnea. Interventions center on diuretics, fluid restriction, daily weights, activity modification, sodium restriction, and oxygen support.
Key lab to anchor your map: BNP (brain natriuretic peptide) and ejection fraction. An EF of 30% is a critical finding that drives every intervention in a heart failure map. Don’t ignore it.Gas Exchange
Gas exchange means the movement of oxygen into the bloodstream and carbon dioxide out, occurring in the alveoli. COPD exacerbation is the classic presentation — airway inflammation and mucus obstruction reduce effective alveolar ventilation. Your cues include SpO2, respiratory rate, breath sounds (wheezing, diminished), ABG values (low PaO2, elevated PaCO2 in retention), use of accessory muscles, and pursed-lip breathing. Interventions focus on bronchodilators, controlled oxygen delivery (critical in COPD — too much O2 blunts hypoxic drive), positioning, and breathing techniques.
Important nuance for COPD: oxygen targets in COPD patients are typically SpO2 88–92%, not 95%+. If you’re mapping a COPD exacerbation, your SMART goal for oxygen saturation should reflect this range. Instructors who know pulmonary nursing will look for it.APA 7 References for This Assignment
The second page of the template gives you two placeholder citations — one for an ebook, one for a textbook. You replace those with your actual sources. The assignment says to cite everything you used: your textbook, credible websites, or journal articles.
Standard APA 7 book format: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the book (Xth ed.). Publisher. — For example, a common Nightingale text: Hinkle, J. L., & Cheever, K. H. (2022). Brunner & Suddarth’s textbook of medical-surgical nursing (15th ed.). Wolters Kluwer. Capitalize only the first word of the title and proper nouns. Italicize the full title.
The template shows the DOI format: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the ebook (Xth ed.). Publisher. https://doi.org/xxxxx — If your ebook has a DOI (most do when accessed through your library), include it at the end without a period after the URL. If there’s no DOI, use the URL of the library database homepage, not the full retrieval URL (those expire).
Organization Name. (Year, Month Day). Title of the specific page. URL — Example: American Diabetes Association. (2024). Standards of care in diabetes — 2024. https://diabetesjournals.org/care/issue/47/Supplement_1 — Use the page-level URL, not the homepage. If no individual author is listed, the organization name serves as author. Use (n.d.) if no date is available.
The assignment says to use both in-text citations and a reference list. That means when you write something in your Take Action or Generate Solutions boxes that comes from a source, you need to tag it: (Hinkle & Cheever, 2022). If it’s a direct quote (rare in a concept map, but possible), include the page number: (Hinkle & Cheever, 2022, p. 145). Most of what you write in a concept map will be paraphrased — no quotes needed, but the author and year still go in parentheses.
The assignment doesn’t specify a minimum. Two to four references is a realistic and adequate range for this type of document — your textbook, one clinical guideline or ebook, and potentially one journal article if you used one. Don’t list sources you didn’t actually draw on. Every reference in the list should correspond to at least one in-text citation somewhere in the map.
Mistakes That Cost Points
Mixing Up Recognize and Analyze Cues
Writing “glucose 380 suggests uncontrolled diabetes” in the Recognize Cues box crosses into analysis. Recognition is pure observation. “Blood glucose 380 mg/dL” is a cue. What it means goes in Analyze Cues. Keep the boxes conceptually separate.
List Raw Findings in Recognize, Interpret in Analyze
Recognize Cues: “Blood glucose 380 mg/dL. Polyuria. Reports missing metformin x14 days. A1C 9.5%.” Analyze Cues: “Elevated glucose and missed doses indicate acute hyperglycemia from medication non-adherence. Polyuria is consistent with osmotic diuresis. A1C indicates chronic poor control.”
Writing Goals That Aren’t Measurable
“The patient will understand diabetes management by discharge.” Understanding is not measurable. What observable behavior proves understanding? A return demonstration. A verbal quiz. A teach-back. Name the evidence, not the internal state.
Use Observable Outcomes in Every SMART Goal
“The patient will verbalize three signs of hypoglycemia and the appropriate self-treatment steps by the end of the education session, as evidenced by teach-back.” Observable. Measurable. Time-bound. Your instructor can grade this because it’s concrete.
Letting the Map Drift Off-Concept
Picking Gas Exchange but filling the Take Action box with interventions for fluid management, daily weights, and diuretics. Those belong in a Perfusion map. When in doubt, ask: does this intervention directly address how oxygen moves in and out of the alveoli? If not, it doesn’t belong here.
Run Every Entry Through the Concept Filter
Before writing anything in any box, ask: “Does this connect to my chosen concept?” For Gas Exchange, every cue, hypothesis, goal, action, and evaluation should trace back to oxygenation and ventilation. If it doesn’t, cut it or find the connection explicitly.
Putting Nursing Actions in the Solutions Box
“Administer insulin as ordered” is an action, not a solution. The Generate Solutions box is for patient outcome goals — what the patient will do or achieve, not what the nurse will do. Putting interventions in the wrong box scrambles the clinical judgment sequence the assignment is testing.
Solutions = Patient Goals, Actions = Nurse Interventions
Generate Solutions: “Patient will maintain blood glucose 140–180 mg/dL within 24 hours.” Take Action: “Administer insulin per sliding scale protocol. Monitor fingerstick glucose every 4 hours.” The patient is the subject of goals. The nurse is the subject of actions. Keep them in the right boxes.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nursing Assignment Help Get StartedPutting the Map Together
The concept map isn’t busy work. It’s a structured clinical reasoning exercise — the same sequence a nurse runs through mentally at the bedside, just made visible on paper. Recognize, analyze, hypothesize, plan, act, evaluate. That’s the loop.
The students who struggle with this assignment usually do so because they treat the boxes as separate tasks rather than a connected sequence. Your cues should drive your analysis. Your analysis should drive your hypotheses. Your hypotheses should drive your goals. Your goals should drive your actions. And your actions should be measurable enough that you can evaluate them at the end. When that chain holds together, the map works.
Get the concept right, keep the focus tight, write SMART goals with real numbers, and cite your sources. That’s the whole assignment.