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Volume 8
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Research and Nursing Education |
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In this Issue Nursing Education Research Confirming the Factor Structure of an Intuition Instrument for Nursing Students Teaching Strategies
Curriculum Topics
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Special Issue: Nursing Education Research and Innovations In this special issue of SOJNR we sample nursing education research, teaching strategies, and curricular innovations as a beginning to a new journey together for nursing education. In the Southern region, we have exemplary programs of nursing education but we have not reached the heights we desire. Faculty shortages, nursing shortages and other problems affecting professional nursing practice must be addressed in order to reach our goals for our region and country. One way to improve our educational offerings is through renewed dialog within states, across state borders and beyond to include international colleagues who share in a focus for improving nursing education. That is our hope for this issue. This issue began with support from the Research Interest Group (RIG) for Education within the Southern Nursing Research Society (SNRS). The group had hosted discussions at annual SNRS meetings but had not had a tangible goal prior to this endeavor. The call for papers went to all SNRS members and others across the Southern region and beyond who were pursuing current topics in nursing education. The call was heard by nursing faculty members in the Southern states, but also by nurse educators as far away as the West coast and the continents of South America and Africa. The issue includes two research reports, two papers detailing creative teaching strategies, a description of a curriculum merger, and a call to consider social justice issues in nursing education In the article, “Confirming the Factor Structure of the Intuition Instrument for Nursing Students,” Anita J. Smith reports a confirmatory analysis of an intuition instrument for nursing students. Since development of clinical judgment and critical thinking are at the heart of nursing education processes, new techniques to measure these are essential. Intuition is one means of knowing in clinical nursing. The author reports seven factors in the confirmatory analysis of the Smith Intuition Instrument for Nursing Students: Good Feelings, Spiritual Connections, Reading Cues, Bad Feelings, Physical Awareness, Physical Feelings that Alert, and Sensing Energy. These constructs may give educators cues of new ways to guide students to both use their intuition and to validate it through further assessment and collaboration. This area of nursing research is ripe for future development. Smith and her colleagues have done a service in their continued work on the psychometric evaluation of the scale. At the end of the nursing education continuum are educational outcomes. Tipton and colleagues examine a number of possible “Predictors of Associate Degree Nursing Students’ Success.” Their work is distinguished by its use of a longitudinal design over 5 years and its method which looks at a panoply of factors together. The authors investigate not only GPA and NCLEX pass rates but also time of progression, association with fundamentals courses, entrance characteristics, stressors during school, test taker type and others. Educators have long known and understood that multiple factors affect individual students’ progress and passing of national board exams, but this study begins to identify subtle differences between groups that seem similar in average scores. Their approach to look for relevant differences and to find predictors early is commendable. Their willingness to examine the complexity of factors may provide a model for further development. Without compromising our philosophy of the roles of educational responsibilities of students, the multiple factor approach may give educators insight into factors which weigh significantly in nursing education outcomes. Two teaching strategies are discussed in the next section. Stanton, Thomas and Lammon describe a pedagogical strategy for web-based graduate education entitled “Conversation with a Theorist.” A virtual conversation takes place among students who take on the roles of their chosen theorist. The course in advanced nursing theory encourages students to respond to online discussion topics posted by class members. Faculty members serve as discussion facilitators to the asynchronous “conversation”. According to these authors, the students develop a “personal affinity for the theorist” and engage in “theoretical bantering.” How often have we heard complaints about nursing theory as not relevant for nursing today? Does this use of online technologies actually strengthen the imagination and theoretically stretching of the mind of these graduate nurses? It is hoped that through the lenses of nurse theorists, graduate students, most who are potential nurse educators themselves, will acquire the creativity, leadership and strength of convictions possessed by so many of the founders of our profession. The authors review several key educational theories and conclude the justifications for their approach are congruent with building on the lived experience of nurses, using storytelling and narrative to build cognitive skills, and employing the demand-pull approach over the faculty-push approach. They also provide comments from faculty and students on its effectiveness. By the way—reading about this strategy might give you insight into the intergalactic history of nursing viewed from the next millennium, circa 3000. In “Teaching Writing to Undergraduate Nursing Students: An International Dialog,” a glimpse is provided into how we as educators do indeed teach similar content, processes and skills even when we are as geographically distant as three continents. This collaboration was borne from an international writing collaborative established through respective chapters of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Descriptions from Brazil, South Africa and the USA show how undergraduates in all three programs struggle with the elements of writing. All three educator groups recognize that writing is a complex task. They all value the experiential learning of writing as formative in students becoming scholars and going forward in graduate programs. The description from Brazil emphasizes the partnership between the research supervisor and the student, the essay from South Africa emphasizes the tension in writing, and the paper from the USA emphasizes the practical aspects of encouraging writing. The pedagogy of teaching writing is explored from an international perspective. In “Collaborative Change: An Interdependent Model of Nursing Education”, faculty from two schools of nursing describe the process and model by which they merged the resources of their programs to provide a common identity. In an era of higher demands for nurses and dwindling resources, faculty initiated a deliberate process to create effective collaboration. Hamner and colleagues, with other faculty from the Auburn University and Auburn University Montgomery Schools of Nursing (AUSON and AUMSON), met every other week for over a year to work through differences and build on strengths of the two schools. They developed a model, the Shared Interdependent Independent Collaboration (SIIC) and negotiated a common mission retaining those elements that each faculty held passionately. They worked through conflict and divergent views in curriculum, students and faculty resources. They developed innovative approaches to using technology to span the distance between campuses. Their model can serve as an outstanding example of how faculties in the Southern region overcome differences. They are a stellar example of how collaboration can produce rewards. Their written description is a tribute to the openness and accomplishment of the faculties in their collaboration. This practical article not only describes the process of merging these two schools but also provides a rich and detailed discussion of curriculum revision, grounded in nursing education literature as the catalyst for change. Their model can serve others in the future who seek to make change collaboratively. Finally, in a paper about social justice issues affecting nursing and nursing education, Vickers raises significant questions for us to consider, in “How Should We Educate for Social Justice in Undergraduate Nursing Curricula?” Her thesis surrounds the idea that “dominance is most complete when it is not even recognized.” This paper draws us into dialog about how we educate our neophytes in nursing. It is provocative but also can encourage discussion amongst us. Do we look deeply enough into the social issues and trends affecting educational processes or do we accept uncritically those processes? Do issues of social equality detract from our mission of quality care or exemplify the best of that mission? Vickers advocates for a curriculum revolution and challenges us as educators to look broadly at the forces underlying our educational approaches. She aptly states that most of our baccalaureate graduates will not attend graduate school, and therefore developing a meaningful praxis for social change at the undergraduate level is essential. The range of authors and topics captures the diversity in nursing education today. We are delighted to highlight these papers and look forward to the evolving discussion. Please forward your comments to Ellen Buckner, bucknere@uab.edu , or Carol Boswell Carol.Boswell@ttuhsc.edu . Comments may be published in SOJNR as letters to the editor or used as part of discussion at the Research Interest Group (RIG) Education meeting at the next SNRS conference. We hope to hear from many of you. We hope to continue the dialog at the conference. Sincerely, Ellen Buckner DSN, RN, UAB
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