Innovative Interdisciplinary Collaboration to Improve Student Outcomes in a Clinical Nurse Leader Program

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to transform content delivery in the pathophysiology/pharmacology in the Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) program to improve academic success for students through a unique, formalized partnership with course nursing faculty and a the director of the Student Success center in this university. The entry level CNL option at this school of nursing is an intensive, full time, fast paced program for individuals with a non-nursing background who want to earn a master’s degree while becoming a Registered Nurse. The CNL students are adult learners and often face challenges transitioning to the pace of the program and learning the nursing-oriented content. Adult learners, or nontraditional students, by definition are older, have multiple responsibilities such as family or work, and face other life challenges (Steele, 2016; Kapur, 2015).

The most rigorous course in the program is the 5-credit pathophysiology/pharmacology course. Students in the course experience a high level of anxiety, utilize the most supplemental resources, have the highest rate of course withdrawals, and have more instances of earned grades at or below a C (2.0) than any other entry to practice course at the undergraduate or graduate level. The course faculty and the Director of the Schools’ Student Success Center recognized the challenges students faced in the course. From this recognition, the partnership evolved.

Methods: A joint proposal, aimed at improving student retention and learner outcomes, was submitted and awarded a Dean’s Teaching Scholar grant in the spring of 2019. This internal grant provides faculty support for the development and implementation of innovative teaching projects. The project seeks to increase faculty/student engagement through the use of interactive class activities designed to improve student success. Several outcomes will be evaluated including positive student semester evaluations, decrease in the number of academic withdrawals and decrease in the number of students earning a grade of C or less.

Discussions of the benefits of active learning strategies over lecture in the classroom are not new. Faculty from many disciplines, including nursing, are challenged to employ teaching strategies that engage students in the classroom. Research suggests that active learning environments facilitate acquisition and understanding of material for adult learners and ultimately contributes to academic success (MacDonald, 2018; Regier, 2014; Shin, Sok, Hyun & Kim, 2015). Waltz, Jenkins & Han (2014) suggest that more evidence is needed about the use and effectiveness of active learning in nursing and other disciplines.

Results: Preliminary results of student evaluations as well as the number of academic withdrawals and the number of students earning a grade of C or less will be presented.

Conclusion: The project’s collaboration between a doctoral-prepared clinical/content expert and a doctoral-prepared educational delivery and learner outcomes expert is the first of its kind in this program. Our poster will discuss how the collaboration came to be, the development of the project, and the work completed thus far.