Tips for Conducting a Successful Windshield Survey

Tips for Conducting a Successful Windshield Survey

We have seen many students struggle with doing a windshield survey and figured out we could share some tips and insights to help you do it successfully.

1. Choose a manageable area for your assessment. We recommend that you select a small enough area. You can begin with a zip code and then go even smaller. Most urban centers have well-defined neighborhood boundaries; take advantage of them. Consider assessing the entire town or area if you are in rural areas or a smaller town.
2. You can broaden the area as certain services and amenities might not be available in your zoned area or smaller community, especially if it is a primary residential.
3. Broaden your area further so that you find critical services that are not available in your community or close by but may be available in your city or county. You should state the resource in your template.
4. Check the utilization of resources within the community against their intended purposes. For example, are teens or unhoused individuals using a specific resource rendering its inaccessibility by the community members?
5. Consider the potential disparities in the community. Check for signs of racial/ethnic, food, entertainment, and other resource disparities.
6. Don�t drive or walk alone at night, especially in areas that do not guarantee your safety and security. If specific groups are hostile, avoid such areas as your security matters more.
7. As you drive around, have someone drive you so that you can observe, notice, collect data, and make notes on your windshield survey template. You risk an accident if you survey as you drive by yourself.
8. Note the conditions of the buildings, roads, parks, and schools.
9. Note accessibility and equitability. The architectural barriers, such as the lack of ramps or bike lanes, can affect access to resources.
10. Ensure you read the windshield survey template and instructions before planning and executing the survey or writing the report.
11. Survey at a convenient time for your schedule.
12. You can do the survey more than once and at different times of the day or on different days of the week.

Structure and Format of a Windshield Survey Report

A windshield survey paper is written like any other report. It follows the formatting requirements of academic papers. In most cases, professors prefer it to be written in the latest APA format. You can write and structure your paper in APA 6 or 7, depending on the preference of your teacher/instructor. Here are the parts of the report. Note that the report is at least three double-spaced pages, and it entails the following:

1. Cover Page. The cover page contains your details, the school details, and the submission date. Check with your instructor if there is a specific format to be used. If not, use the Harvard or APA cover page formats.
2. The introduction. The report's introduction should contain a background of the community, including the name of the community or neighborhood. You should also identify the boundaries of your windshield survey or the walking community assessment survey. The introduction should also include the purpose of a windshield survey, and yours specifically.
3. The Body. The body of your windshield survey report entails clear, concise, and well-presented information that you gathered. You analyze the data gathered from the template and write what you saw, noticed, or experienced in prose. If facts are not common, ensure to provide relevant in-text citations. Translate your observations and findings into a report. Ensure that you write the report in the third person, not the first person, as it is an academic paper. The APA paper is written from the view of an outside person. You are not telling your story. Also, avoid talking about your family and avoid materials that do not apply to the community. You should use current academic references, preferably those published in the last five years. If there are references that document the characteristics of the community, use them as well.
4. The Conclusion. The conclusion of the windshield survey paper should include the strengths and gaps of the community, including the rationale. Write about your overall impression of the community from a community health perspective. You should also include the challenges the community is facing, unexpected things you observed, aspects of the community that stood out, and other relevant information that you can use to develop a health promotion and wellness plan for the population that resides in the community.
5. Include any piece of resources used when writing the windshield survey report. Considering protocol and practicality, consider using references published within the last five years, primarily peer-reviewed nursing journals.
6. In the appendices, include the completed windshield survey template you used to gather data. You can also include a map of the area or images you took (with consent, if they represent people). Everything represented or referenced in the report goes to the appendices section.

Steps for Writing a Windshield Survey Report

After getting the structure right, let�s get to grips with the report writing process so that everything falls into place as it should. A good nursing report is detailed, has up-to-date information, and is devoid of errors. And to write a perfect report or essay for your windshield survey, below are some steps to take.

1. Read the instructions

The most important aspect of report writing is to begin by reading the instructions. Your instructor or professor will specify what to expect in your windshield survey instructions and template. You will be told the purpose of the windshield, the type of community, or the boundaries to set for the survey. Reading the instructions and internalizing them helps you to plan, execute, and coordinate the survey systematically and successfully.

2. Go over your windshield Survey Template

After reading the instructions, peruse through the template to understand the scope of your findings. You have taken notes already; try to understand if there is anything you did not capture and do the necessary. If you had forgotten to note something but can find it online, take note of that and include it as part of your references.

3. Research

Conduct research over the internet to identify the peer-reviewed scholarly sources to use in the paper. Identify articles and references published in the last five years for up-to-date information. It is an academic paper, and everything borrowed, paraphrased, or summarized from other sources should be cited as long as it is not common knowledge or fact to avoid plagiarism.

4. Write the First Draft

With everything set, follow the structure outlined above to write the first draft. Focus on writing first and fast and editing later to capture the essential parts before getting bored. As you write the paper, cite your peer-reviewed journals and other credible scholarly sources. Your writing process can follow any method. If you wish, you can begin from the introduction down to the conclusion or handle the windshield survey paper in bits that finally fit into a well-flowing paper.

5. Polish your First Draft to a Final Draft

After writing the report, just before turning it in, check the spelling, grammar, and punctuation used. Spend time polishing the paper so you don�t lose marks that could otherwise be saved through in-depth editing and proofreading.

Concluding Remarks

Conducting a windshield survey is never a dull assignment, like writing a nursing case study that requires in-depth research, a clinical reasoning cycle, and the application of nursing concepts and terminologies. It is an interactive assignment that you should find interesting. Surprisingly, you can do the survey online without setting foot in the community thanks to the widespread information. Related Readings:

• How to write a nursing diagnosis (NDx)

If you have conducted the survey and would like a professional writer to help you write the report, do not hesitate to place an order on our website. We have been the most trusted online nursing papers website for over ten years. You will get personal and confidential assistance. Besides, since all the papers are written from scratch, they pass plagiarism checkers such as Turnitin, Lopes Write, Safe Assign, or Unicheck, you name it. We do it as it should have been done, to the standard, citing every resource and crowning all papers with an in-depth proofreading and editing process.

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