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Monday, 31 October 2011
Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to describe the undergraduate nursing study abroad courses used as a method to foster cultural development in students.
Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to identify long-term outcomes of participating in a short-term study abroad course.
The globalization of healthcare requires that nurses be equipped with skills to care for a multicultural patient population. Providing care to diverse groups is introduced in the undergraduate nursing curriculum. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice (2008) asserts that attention to cultural diversity is necessary for safe, quality care. To meet this educational standard, faculty at a liberal arts university in the Midwestern United States developed three elective short-term study abroad immersion courses in which undergraduate students attended semester-long classroom sessions followed by a 10-day immersion experience in Ireland, Croatia, or Turkey. Based on Wells’ (2000) Cultural Development Model, the intent of the study abroad experience was to move students through the cognitive phase of cultural development, from cultural incompetence, to cultural knowledge and awareness, and onto cultural sensitivity. Over 80 students have participated in these courses since implementation in 2006. End-of-course evaluations were overwhelmingly positive. Yet faculty speculated about the long-term benefits of participating in such a course. To answer the research question, “What are the long-term benefits of participating in a short-term study abroad course?” faculty researchers invited all nursing study abroad alumni to complete an adapted version of the International Education Survey (Zorn, 1996). This instrument includes 32 Likert-scaled items and two open-ended questions exploring alumni’s perceptions of how the study abroad experience affected their professional practice, global awareness and personal life decisions. Data collection is in progress. To date, preliminary analysis demonstrates positive long-term effects of participating in a short-term international immersion experience.
Wells, M. I. (2000). Beyond cultural competence: A model for individual and institutional cultural development. Journal of Community Health Nursing, 17 (4), 189-99.
Zorn, C. (1996). The long-term impact on nursing students of participating in international education. Journal of Professional Nursing, 12 (2), 106-10.