Saturday, 21 April 2018
Contemporary higher education and healthcare landscapes support the need to investigate evidence based teaching strategies that prompt success among accelerated, second-degree prelicensure student nurses. The current socio-political-economic context impacting nursing curriculum is comprised of legislative action in the form of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) (2010), recommendations from the Consensus Report generated by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing at the Institute of Medicine (IOM, 2011), and the pervasive culture of assessment of student learning outcomes in higher education linked to accreditation standards. Nurse educators preparing students to deliver person-centered care to patients, families, communities and populations must enhance learning environments to meet the needs of veteran learners (Finch, 2012) who will comprise the future nursing workforce. Outcomes of student learning cannot be improved if nurse educators fail to examine the processes of education employed to develop learners (Banta, Jones & Black, 2009). Accelerated, second degree prelicensure students represent seasoned learners who enter schools of nursing for a myriad of reasons, all ultimately aimed at earning a bachelor’s degree to qualify them for writing the licensure examination. This study was designed to examine this cohorts’ perceptions of the andragogical practices employed by faculty that prepared students best to begin practice as entry-level professional nurses. The study further sought to identify the ways in which andragogical practices used by faculty incorporated the students’ prior learning and life experiences as the student accrued knowledge of the art and science of nursing. Through interviews with 24 participants six themes were derived from the data. They included: (a) range of experience and perception, (b) the context of knowledge, (c) checking in versus checking out, (d) it’s not just about strategy: The influence of passion and connection, (e) practice in action, and (f) program demands as preparation for career demands. Through analysis of these findings, it was learned that although faculty implementation of teaching strategies does influence learning and the ability of the graduate to engage in clinical reasoning once working as a professional nurse, elements external to strategy also influence the experience of learning. Two significant findings of this study were that faculty attributes of passion and expert knowledge hold prime importance for a student and that student exposure to program plans of study designs of accelerated, second-degree programs facilitate transition to the professional practice role. This research adds to the existing body of literature related to the education of accelerated, second-degree prelicensure baccalaureate students. Findings of this study can be used to inform faculty about best practices for teaching this particular cohort of students who seek nursing as an alternate career and assist with construction of innovative curricular designs to meet the needs of this unique group.