Start | Browse by Day | Author Index | Keyword Index

Quality of Doctoral Nursing Education in South Africa

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Siedine Knobloch-Coetzee, MCur, BCur, RN, RM
School of Nursing Science, North West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa
Hester C. Klopper, PhD, MBA, RN, RM, BACUR, MCUR
School of Nursing Science, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Learning Objective 1: To explore and describe the quality of doctoral nursing education in South Africa from the perspectives of nursing deans, faculty, students and graduates.

Learning Objective 2: To explore and describe graduates’ perceptions of doctoral nursing education with regards to career preparation and what have they contributed to nursing scholarship post graduation.

BACKGROUND: The numbers of doctoral nursing programs have rapidly multiplied in many countries of the world, with each program varying not only between countries, but also between universities within countries, which has led to a concern about the quality of doctoral nursing education worldwide.  This study forms part of an international collaboration to compare the quality of doctoral nursing education among Australia, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom and the United States of America.  In South Africa, this was the first study to be conducted at a national level to evaluate the quality of doctoral nursing education. 

AIM: (i) To explore and describe the quality of doctoral nursing education in South Africa from the perspectives of nursing deans, faculty, students and graduates with regards to the doctoral program, resources, faculty and evaluations.  (ii) To explore and describe graduates’ perceptions of the relevance of doctoral nursing education with regards to career preparation and what have they contributed to nursing scholarship post graduation.

DESIGN: A quantitative and qualitative research design was used along with exploratory, descriptive and contextual research strategies.

METHOD: An e-mail based quality criteria, standards, and indicators (QCSI) survey was distributed to an all inclusive purposive sample of nursing deans, faculty, students and graduates at South African universities which present doctoral nursing programs, and semi-structured telephonic interviews were conducted with randomly selected graduates who have completed their studies in the most recent three years.

FINDINGS: Findings are in the process of analysis and will be discussed.

CONCLUSION: The exploration and description of doctoral nursing education provided baseline data of the quality of doctoral nursing education in South Africa, allowing threats to quality to be identified and strategies to improve the quality of doctoral nursing education in South Africa to be developed.

See more of: Accepted Leadership Posters
See more of: Oral Paper & Poster: Leadership Sessions