Subscription Learning: A Technology-Based Component of Clinical Faculty Orientation

This pilot study was designed to explore the potential of a technology-based subscription learning experience for use in clinical faculty orientation. Orientation experiences for clinical nurse faculty are pivotal to their success and development, but little evidence exists to guide high quality orientation experiences (Santisteban & Egues, 2014). The challenges associated with the new faculty phase are well documented and represent a serious threat to positive program outcomes (Cangelosi, Crocker, & Sorrell, 2009; Peters & Boylston, 2006). Evidence and expert opinion do suggest, however, that better nurse faculty orientation experiences can lead to improved faculty retention and better student outcomes (Davidson & Rourke, 2012; Hewitt & Lewallen, 2010; Johnson, 2016). Adequate nurse faculty orientation programs consist of learning experiences that includes education about department policies and procedures as well as best practices for promoting student success (Hewitt & Lewallen, 2010). Unfortunately, new nurse faculty are often overwhelmed with a barrage of information during a traditional faculty orientation that makes recall and implementation difficult.

Subscription learning is an emerging style of education that combines modern technologic tools with learning science (Thalheimer, 2016). Instead of exposure to a large amount of learning material at one time, learners are prompted with an intermittent stream of small learning sessions. A subscription learning platform was developed and tested for potential use in clinical faculty orientation. Learning experiences were developed by a full-time nurse faculty member and a community partner in the IT industry. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) products were utilized to develop a low-cost subscription learning platform that included content and evaluation opportunities for each lesson. Eight lessons were developed, each targeted to take between two and five minutes to complete. Content for each lesson included critical topics in the nursing student clinical evaluation tool including holism, assessment, communication, diversity, documentation, compassion, evaluation, and models/frameworks. Two lessons each week were delivered to consenting clinical faculty members over the course of four weeks. Feedback was assessed through a survey including Likert-style questions and qualitative feedback. Nine clinical faculty provided feedback on the subscription learning platform. Results indicated positive impressions of the learning methodology and support for future use in clinical faculty orientation. Clinical faculty reported utilizing techniques and suggestions provided in the learning experience with their clinical groups. Feedback did suggest that clinical faculty desired more depth in the content provided in each lesson. This study supports further exploration of subscription learning as a component of a comprehensive clinical nurse faculty orientation program. Future directions may include development of a stand-alone application that would streamline evaluation and monitoring by clinical supervisors. This technology could ultimately be used to promote high quality clinical experiences for nursing students through the development of high quality clinical instructors.