ANECDOTAL

RECORDS

KIRAN DIXIT
M.Sc. NURSING 1ST YEAR
A record is a clinical, scientific,
administrative and legal documents
relating to a particular activity or
procedure conducted in a professional
settings.
An anecdote is a short account of a
particular incident or event, especially
of an interesting or amusing nature.
 Anecdotal record

• An anecdotal record is a description of actual examples

of behavior of a student as observed by teachers and
the counselor followed by their comments.
• These are descriptive accounts of episodes or
occurrences in the daily life of the student .
• An anecdotal record is a report of significant episode in
the life of a student.
 definition

“Anecdotal record is a record of some significant item

of conduct, a record of an episode in the life of a
student, a word picture of the student, a word picture of
the student in action, a word snapshot at the moment of
the incident, any narration of the events in which may
be significant about his personality.”
-Randall
Purpose:
• Provide information regarding a students development
over a period of time
• Provide ongoing records about individual instructional
needs
• Capture observations of significant behaviors that
might otherwise be lost
• Provide ongoing documentations of learning that may
br shared with students, parents and teachers.
CHARACTERSTICS:
• Should contain factual description
• Should contain a record of a single incident
• Interpretations and recommended actions should
be noted seperately from description
• Should be significant to students growth and
development
• Should be regarded as confidential
• Exact behavior of the student should be recorded
MERITS
• Help in clinical service practices
• Provide factual record of our observation of a simple,
significant incident
• Stimulate teacher to use record and contribute to them
• Record critical incidents of spontaneous behavior
• Direct teachers attention to a single student
• Provide cumulative record of growth and developments
• Used by counsellor as a source of information for giving
evidence
• Can be used as a supplement to quantitative data
DEMERITS
• Less reliable
• Time consuming
• Difficult to maintain objectivity
• May lose their meaning
• Record only undesirable incidents and
neglect positive incidents
• Selective observation
Principles:
1. Restrict observation to those aspects of behaviour which cannot
be evaluated by other means
2. Concentrate on only one or two behaviors
3. Observation blueprint should be prepared
4. Record the incident as soon as possible
5. Must be emphasized on educational source
6. Should not be confined to recording negative behaviour pattern
7. Teacher should have practice and training and making
observation and writing anecdotal records.

 
 • Name of the school/college………….
Format of anecdotal
• Name of the student
record:
observed……………………………………
• Class………….
1. The first part of the record should be • Subject………………………
factual and simple:
• Name of the observer…………………..
 Name of the student
 Unit/ward/ department • Date and place………………….
 Date and time • Objective
Brief report of what happened

description………………………………………
…
2. The second part contains additional
comments, analysis and conclusions based • Comments of the
on interpretations and judgements observer…………………………………………
• Signature of the observer
ccnclusion

An anecdotal record is an observational method used

frequently in classroom or learning settings in which the
observer summarizes a single developmental incident after
the event has occurred.
Written from memory, the anecdotal record documents a
student's growth and trends. Such records are intended to
be brief, factual accountings. They identify who, what,
where, when and how of a particular incident, focusing on
the subject's specific conduct .
References:
 Basheer P. Shebeer, “ TEXTBOOK OF NURSING
EDUCATION”, First edition;2015; published by
Emmes medical publishers, Bangalore; page no. 157-
158
 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com.
 Sharma k suresh, “textbook of nursing education”2016
jaypee brothers, Delhi; 280-282