Development of vignettes for learning and professional development.

Vignettes are short, descriptive stories of an incident of practice. They contain realistic contents and can therefore be a trigger for learning processes. The overall goal of this study is to develop work task vignettes as a trigger for learning processes and the professional development of geriatric nurses. First, the authors analyzed how vignettes have to be designed to use them as a trigger for learning processes and professional development. Second, based on these requirements, the authors developed four vignettes describing the work tasks of geriatric nursing staff and validated them in an interview study with 12 experts in the domain of geriatric nursing. Results indicate that the design of vignettes based on criteria for their style and content and the validation of the vignettes in an interview study with experts is an appropriate way to generate vignettes that can be used for learning and professional development.