*Result*: Developing a Nursing Research Education Agent Using Knowledge Graphs and Large Language Models: A Proof-of-Concept Study.
Title:
Developing a Nursing Research Education Agent Using Knowledge Graphs and Large Language Models: A Proof-of-Concept Study.
Authors:
Zeng Y; Author Affiliations: Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore (Drs Zeng, Jiang, and Lau); School of Computers and Computing Sciences, Hangzhou City University, Hangzhou, China (Ms Xie and Dr Xu); and School of Computer Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China (Mr Zhou)., Xie H, Zhou X, Xu C, Jiang Y, Lau ST
Source:
Nurse educator [Nurse Educ] 2026 Mar-Apr 01; Vol. 51 (2), pp. E105-E109. Date of Electronic Publication: 2026 Jan 12.
Publication Type:
Journal Article
Language:
English
Journal Info:
Publisher: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 7701902 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1538-9855 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 03633624 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Nurse Educ Subsets: MEDLINE
Imprint Name(s):
Publication: Philadelphia, PA : Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Original Publication: [Wakefield, Mass., Nursing Digest, Inc.]
Original Publication: [Wakefield, Mass., Nursing Digest, Inc.]
MeSH Terms:
References:
Shorey S. Nursing in Singapore: from deference to leadership—a 50-year arc of transformation. J Adv Nurs. 2025; Sep 2. doi:10.1111/jan.70186. (PMID: 10.1111/jan.70186)
Zainuldin R, Tan HSK. Entrustable professional activities implementation in undergraduate allied health therapy programs. TAPS. 2024;9(1):42-48. doi:10.29060/TAPS.2024-9-1/SC2997. (PMID: 10.29060/TAPS.2024-9-1/SC2997)
Meng Z, Haidan C, Junye T, Qian L, Xin Q, Cheng W. Development of entrustable professional activities for novice nurses: a modified Delphi study. Nurse Educ Pract. 2024;81(11):104181. doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2024.104181. (PMID: 10.1016/j.nepr.2024.104181)
Pietsch J, Maaz A, Kottner J. Entrustable professional activities in nursing education: a scoping review. BMJ Open. 2025;15(5):e094609. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2024-094609. (PMID: 10.1136/bmjopen-2024-094609)
Lau ST, Ang E, Samarasekera DD, Shorey S. Development of undergraduate nursing entrustable professional activities to enhance clinical care and practice. Nurse Educ Today. 2020;87(4):104347. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2020.104347. (PMID: 10.1016/j.nedt.2020.104347)
Singapore Ministry of Health. Guidelines for nursing work-study programme [internal document, not yet released to the public]. Singapore; 2025.
Career conversion programmes for nurses. https://www.wsg.gov.sg/home/campaigns/ccps-nurses . Accessed 1 October 2025.
SkillsFuture work-study programmes for individuals: the skillsfuture work-study programmes (WSP) offer various work-study opportunities for Singaporeans. https://programmes.myskillsfuture.gov.sg/WorkStudyIndividualProgrammes/Programme_Summary.aspx . Accessed 1 October 2025.
Return-to-Nursing Programme. https://www.snb.gov.sg/for-professionals/for-nurses-and-midwives/return-to-nursing-programme/ . Accessed 1 October 2025.
Nursing training and education in Singapore. https://hpp.moh.gov.sg/career-practice/nursing-training-and-education/ . Accessed 1 October 2025.
Rodrigues D, Cruz-Correia R. Large language models in nursing education: state-of-the-art. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2024;316(8):1024-1028. doi:10.3233/SHTI240584. (PMID: 10.3233/SHTI240584)
Jqx N, Chua JYX, Choolani M, Swl L, Foo L, Pereira TL, Shorey S. AI or nay? Evaluating the potential use of ChatGPT (Open AI) and Perplexity AI in undergraduate nursing research: an exploratory case study. Nurse Educ Pract. 2025;87(8):104488. doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2025.104488. (PMID: 10.1016/j.nepr.2025.104488)
Zhang W, Tian Y, Meng X, Wang M, Du J. Knowledge graph-infused fine-tuning for structured reasoning in large language models. arXiv Preprint. 2025;arXiv:2508.14427.
Si J. Exploring AI literacy, attitudes toward AI, and intentions to use AI in clinical contexts among healthcare students in Korea: a cross-sectional study. BMC Med Educ. 2025;25(1):1233. doi:10.1186/s12909-025-07766-8. (PMID: 10.1186/s12909-025-07766-8)
Glauberman G, Ito-Fujita A, Katz S, Callahan J. Artificial intelligence in nursing education: opportunities and challenges. Hawaii J Health Soc Welf. 2023;82(12):302-305. doi:10.31478/202109a. (PMID: 10.31478/202109a)
Agrawal G, Kumarage T, Alghamdi Z, Liu H. Can knowledge graphs reduce hallucinations in LLMs?: a survey. In: Proceedings of the 2024 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies. (Volume 1: Long Papers). 2024:3947-3960.
Lavrinovics E, Biswas R, Bjerva J, Hose K. Knowledge graphs, large language models, and hallucinations: an NLP perspective. J Web Sem. 2025;85:100844. doi:10.1016/j.websem.2024.100844. (PMID: 10.1016/j.websem.2024.100844)
Li H, Appleby G, Alperin K, Gomez SR, Suh A. Mitigating LLM hallucinations with knowledge graphs: a case study. In: proceedings of the human-centered explainable AI Workshop (HCXAI) @ CHI 2025. arXiv Preprint. 2025;arXiv:2504.12422. doi:10.48550/arXiv.2504.12422. (PMID: 10.48550/arXiv.2504.12422)
Hoelscher SH, Pugh A. N.U.R.S.E.S. embracing artificial intelligence: a guide to artificial intelligence literacy for the nursing profession. Nurs Outlook. 2025;73(4):102466. doi:10.1016/j.outlook.2025.102466. (PMID: 10.1016/j.outlook.2025.102466)
Zhou W, Poh CL, Chan HL, Shorey S. Development of entrustable professional activities for advanced practice nurses education. Nurse Educ Today. 2022;116:105462. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2022.10546. (PMID: 10.1016/j.nedt.2022.10546)
Anthamatten A, Pitts C. Integration of entrustable professional activities in a competency-based clinical assessment tool in a nurse practitioner program. Nurse Educ. 2024;49(5):241-245. doi:10.1097/NNE.0000000000001697. (PMID: 10.1097/NNE.0000000000001697)
Discover how AI agents are transforming nursing care. https://emitrr.com/blog/how-ai-agents-are-transforming-nursing-care/ . Accessed 1 October 2025.
Moore J, Chan T, Doucette J, Lipps T, Slager D. Defining nurse practitioner core entrustable professional activities: essential step toward competency-based education. Nurse Educ. 2024;49(5):235-240. doi:10.1097/NNE.0000000000001673. (PMID: 10.1097/NNE.0000000000001673)
Al-Moteri M. Entrustable professional activities in nursing: a concept analysis. Int J Nurs Sci. 2020;7(3):277-284. Erratum in: Int J Nurs Sci . 2020;8(1):V. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnss.2020.12.003. doi:10.1016/j.ijnss.2020.06.009. (PMID: 10.1016/j.ijnss.2020.06.009)
Karlsson M, Hillström L, Johnsson A, Pennbrant S. Experiences of work-integrated learning in nursing education. J Further Higher Edu. 2022;46(10):1377-1390. doi:10.1080/0309877X.2022.2079971. (PMID: 10.1080/0309877X.2022.2079971)
Gao Y, Li R, Croxford E, et al. Leveraging medical knowledge graphs into large language models for diagnosis prediction: design and application Study. JMIR AI. 2025;4:e58670. doi:10.2196/58670. (PMID: 10.2196/58670)
Ministry of Health (Singapore). Speech by Mr Ong Ye Kung at the institute of technical education work-study diploma in nursing launch event. 30 Sept 2024.
Merino-Campos C. The impact of artificial intelligence on personalized learning in higher education: a systematic review. Trends High Educ. 2025;4(2):17. doi:10.3390/higheredu4020017. (PMID: 10.3390/higheredu4020017)
Laupichler MC, Aster A, Schirch J, Raupach T. Development of the “Scale for the assessment of non-experts’ AI literacy”–An exploratory factor analysis. Comput Hum Behav Rep. 2023;12:100338. doi:10.1016/j.chbr.2023.100338. (PMID: 10.1016/j.chbr.2023.100338)
Kao HFS, Hung CC, Fowler KR, Chu TP. AACN competency-based essentials revisit: evidence-based validation of entrustable professional activities in Asia. Nurse Educ Pract. 2024;79(8):104096. doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2024.104096. (PMID: 10.1016/j.nepr.2024.104096)
Zainuldin R, Tan HSK. Entrustable professional activities implementation in undergraduate allied health therapy programs. TAPS. 2024;9(1):42-48. doi:10.29060/TAPS.2024-9-1/SC2997. (PMID: 10.29060/TAPS.2024-9-1/SC2997)
Meng Z, Haidan C, Junye T, Qian L, Xin Q, Cheng W. Development of entrustable professional activities for novice nurses: a modified Delphi study. Nurse Educ Pract. 2024;81(11):104181. doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2024.104181. (PMID: 10.1016/j.nepr.2024.104181)
Pietsch J, Maaz A, Kottner J. Entrustable professional activities in nursing education: a scoping review. BMJ Open. 2025;15(5):e094609. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2024-094609. (PMID: 10.1136/bmjopen-2024-094609)
Lau ST, Ang E, Samarasekera DD, Shorey S. Development of undergraduate nursing entrustable professional activities to enhance clinical care and practice. Nurse Educ Today. 2020;87(4):104347. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2020.104347. (PMID: 10.1016/j.nedt.2020.104347)
Singapore Ministry of Health. Guidelines for nursing work-study programme [internal document, not yet released to the public]. Singapore; 2025.
Career conversion programmes for nurses. https://www.wsg.gov.sg/home/campaigns/ccps-nurses . Accessed 1 October 2025.
SkillsFuture work-study programmes for individuals: the skillsfuture work-study programmes (WSP) offer various work-study opportunities for Singaporeans. https://programmes.myskillsfuture.gov.sg/WorkStudyIndividualProgrammes/Programme_Summary.aspx . Accessed 1 October 2025.
Return-to-Nursing Programme. https://www.snb.gov.sg/for-professionals/for-nurses-and-midwives/return-to-nursing-programme/ . Accessed 1 October 2025.
Nursing training and education in Singapore. https://hpp.moh.gov.sg/career-practice/nursing-training-and-education/ . Accessed 1 October 2025.
Rodrigues D, Cruz-Correia R. Large language models in nursing education: state-of-the-art. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2024;316(8):1024-1028. doi:10.3233/SHTI240584. (PMID: 10.3233/SHTI240584)
Jqx N, Chua JYX, Choolani M, Swl L, Foo L, Pereira TL, Shorey S. AI or nay? Evaluating the potential use of ChatGPT (Open AI) and Perplexity AI in undergraduate nursing research: an exploratory case study. Nurse Educ Pract. 2025;87(8):104488. doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2025.104488. (PMID: 10.1016/j.nepr.2025.104488)
Zhang W, Tian Y, Meng X, Wang M, Du J. Knowledge graph-infused fine-tuning for structured reasoning in large language models. arXiv Preprint. 2025;arXiv:2508.14427.
Si J. Exploring AI literacy, attitudes toward AI, and intentions to use AI in clinical contexts among healthcare students in Korea: a cross-sectional study. BMC Med Educ. 2025;25(1):1233. doi:10.1186/s12909-025-07766-8. (PMID: 10.1186/s12909-025-07766-8)
Glauberman G, Ito-Fujita A, Katz S, Callahan J. Artificial intelligence in nursing education: opportunities and challenges. Hawaii J Health Soc Welf. 2023;82(12):302-305. doi:10.31478/202109a. (PMID: 10.31478/202109a)
Agrawal G, Kumarage T, Alghamdi Z, Liu H. Can knowledge graphs reduce hallucinations in LLMs?: a survey. In: Proceedings of the 2024 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies. (Volume 1: Long Papers). 2024:3947-3960.
Lavrinovics E, Biswas R, Bjerva J, Hose K. Knowledge graphs, large language models, and hallucinations: an NLP perspective. J Web Sem. 2025;85:100844. doi:10.1016/j.websem.2024.100844. (PMID: 10.1016/j.websem.2024.100844)
Li H, Appleby G, Alperin K, Gomez SR, Suh A. Mitigating LLM hallucinations with knowledge graphs: a case study. In: proceedings of the human-centered explainable AI Workshop (HCXAI) @ CHI 2025. arXiv Preprint. 2025;arXiv:2504.12422. doi:10.48550/arXiv.2504.12422. (PMID: 10.48550/arXiv.2504.12422)
Hoelscher SH, Pugh A. N.U.R.S.E.S. embracing artificial intelligence: a guide to artificial intelligence literacy for the nursing profession. Nurs Outlook. 2025;73(4):102466. doi:10.1016/j.outlook.2025.102466. (PMID: 10.1016/j.outlook.2025.102466)
Zhou W, Poh CL, Chan HL, Shorey S. Development of entrustable professional activities for advanced practice nurses education. Nurse Educ Today. 2022;116:105462. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2022.10546. (PMID: 10.1016/j.nedt.2022.10546)
Anthamatten A, Pitts C. Integration of entrustable professional activities in a competency-based clinical assessment tool in a nurse practitioner program. Nurse Educ. 2024;49(5):241-245. doi:10.1097/NNE.0000000000001697. (PMID: 10.1097/NNE.0000000000001697)
Discover how AI agents are transforming nursing care. https://emitrr.com/blog/how-ai-agents-are-transforming-nursing-care/ . Accessed 1 October 2025.
Moore J, Chan T, Doucette J, Lipps T, Slager D. Defining nurse practitioner core entrustable professional activities: essential step toward competency-based education. Nurse Educ. 2024;49(5):235-240. doi:10.1097/NNE.0000000000001673. (PMID: 10.1097/NNE.0000000000001673)
Al-Moteri M. Entrustable professional activities in nursing: a concept analysis. Int J Nurs Sci. 2020;7(3):277-284. Erratum in: Int J Nurs Sci . 2020;8(1):V. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnss.2020.12.003. doi:10.1016/j.ijnss.2020.06.009. (PMID: 10.1016/j.ijnss.2020.06.009)
Karlsson M, Hillström L, Johnsson A, Pennbrant S. Experiences of work-integrated learning in nursing education. J Further Higher Edu. 2022;46(10):1377-1390. doi:10.1080/0309877X.2022.2079971. (PMID: 10.1080/0309877X.2022.2079971)
Gao Y, Li R, Croxford E, et al. Leveraging medical knowledge graphs into large language models for diagnosis prediction: design and application Study. JMIR AI. 2025;4:e58670. doi:10.2196/58670. (PMID: 10.2196/58670)
Ministry of Health (Singapore). Speech by Mr Ong Ye Kung at the institute of technical education work-study diploma in nursing launch event. 30 Sept 2024.
Merino-Campos C. The impact of artificial intelligence on personalized learning in higher education: a systematic review. Trends High Educ. 2025;4(2):17. doi:10.3390/higheredu4020017. (PMID: 10.3390/higheredu4020017)
Laupichler MC, Aster A, Schirch J, Raupach T. Development of the “Scale for the assessment of non-experts’ AI literacy”–An exploratory factor analysis. Comput Hum Behav Rep. 2023;12:100338. doi:10.1016/j.chbr.2023.100338. (PMID: 10.1016/j.chbr.2023.100338)
Kao HFS, Hung CC, Fowler KR, Chu TP. AACN competency-based essentials revisit: evidence-based validation of entrustable professional activities in Asia. Nurse Educ Pract. 2024;79(8):104096. doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2024.104096. (PMID: 10.1016/j.nepr.2024.104096)
Contributed Indexing:
Keywords: AI agent; entrustable professional activities; knowledge graph; large language model; nursing research
Entry Date(s):
Date Created: 20260112 Date Completed: 20260220 Latest Revision: 20260220
Update Code:
20260220
DOI:
10.1097/NNE.0000000000002105
PMID:
41521533
Database:
MEDLINE
*Further Information*
*Background: Integration of knowledge graphs (KGs) and large language models (LLMs) holds transformative potential for nursing education, particularly in research methodology and statistical literacy. This proof-of-concept study developed a Nursing Research Education Agent to support learners in understanding research designs and statistical concepts.
Purpose: To evaluate the agent's feasibility, pedagogical alignment, and AI performance using validated instruments in a nursing education context.
Methods: The agent combined structured KGs of nursing research knowledge with LLMs for interactive, natural-language responses. Ten nursing educators assessed it using the 10-item Pedagogical Fit Evaluation Scale and 10-item AI Performance Evaluation Scale.
Results: Educators rated pedagogical fit highly (M = 4.20, SD = 0.63) and AI performance strongly (M = 4.10, SD = 0.56), praising clinical relevance, accuracy, and promotion of critical thinking. Integration into curricula was deemed feasible.
Conclusions: KG-LLM-integrated agents show strong promise for nursing research education. Further development and larger-scale trials are recommended.
(Copyright © 2026 The Authors. Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)*
*The authors declare no conflicts of interest.*