Nursing faculty development program for digital teaching competence.

BACKGROUND: Nursing faculties need to develop digital competencies to effectively use information, communication, and technology-based nursing education. PURPOSE: The study aimed to develop and apply a theory-guided faculty development program on digital teaching competencies. METHODS: A faculty development program was developed. Between March and April 2020, three five-hour web workshops participated by ninety-three faculty members were held. The program was assessed via mixed methods, combining satisfaction surveys post-workshop with content analysis of open-ended questionnaires to gauge participant evaluation of program content and learning experience. RESULTS: Participants were highly satisfied with the program contents and their opportunity for integrating digital technology into education and improving faculty proficiency in digital teaching technology. CONCLUSIONS: The program provides faculties with the self-confidence and essential skills to teach students using information, communication, and technology-based nursing education by enhancing their digital teaching competencies. It is critical to integrate both digital proficiency and nursing practice education.

Shared Governance Through Bylaws: Transformation Within a College of Nursing.

BACKGROUND: Enhancing faculty voice and promoting shared governance within academia has long been called for but has not been well-reported. A college of nursing in the midwestern United States identified shortcomings in its organizational structure including lack of faculty voice, communication barriers, lack of faculty participation in decision making, and academic programs operating independently. METHOD: A workgroup was formed to transform the bylaws to promote shared governance, including faculty voice, equality, and engagement. RESULTS: The bylaws were revised and presented to faculty for discussion, further revisions, and vote. The revised bylaws were approved and implemented in August 2021. CONCLUSION: Through transformation of the bylaws, the college's 12-committee structure was reconceptualized to five standing committees and 13 subcommittees. Clear communication lines and cross-committee collaboration was established to break down the former academic program silos. Faculty with primary teaching assignments are equally represented throughout the structure with voice, vote, and responsibility. [J Nurs Educ. 2024;63(5):277-281.].

Pursuing Success in a Hybrid PhD Nursing Program.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about hybrid PhD nursing students' experiences. METHOD: The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the experiences of PhD nursing students in a hybrid program using a convergent mixed methods design. Recent nursing PhD alumni (n = 18), and current PhD students (n = 4) were recruited at a research-intensive university in the southwestern United States. RESULTS: Four metainferences were identified: (1) the facilitator of faculty as both advisors and mentors; (2) the facilitator of peers as support, motivation, and a source of advice that preceded advisors; (3) the barrier of receiving conflicting feedback from advisory and dissertation committees; and (4) the barrier of not understanding the PhD student process. CONCLUSION: Peer support is fundamental for hybrid PhD nursing student success; conflicting feedback and not understanding the process are significant barriers. Strategies are recommended to mitigate barriers to facilitate hybrid PhD nursing students' success. [J Nurs Educ. 2024;63(5):328-331.].

Investigating academic nurse researchers' knowledge, experience, and attitude toward predatory journals.

BACKGROUND: Selecting a journal with an appropriate scope and breadth, well-respected by other scholars in the field, and widely indexed and accessible to readers is an integral part of publishing. Academic publishing has recently seen a significant shift away from traditional print publications and toward open access journals and online publications. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate academic nurse researchers' knowledge, experience, and attitudes regarding predatory journals. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional quantitative study design was conducted using Predatory Journals Questionnaire to collect the data from academic nurse educators working at X and XX University. RESULTS: Almost two-thirds (68.6 %) of participants had previous knowledge of the term "predatory journal." As well as, the majority of academic educators had previous experience as they had used predatory journals before, as by being asked to publish in their journal (84.3 %) or serve on its editorial board (24.3 %), participants were more likely to receive requests to submit an article to a predatory journal (52.9 %) via email, mail, or phone. In addition, academic nurse researchers had a moderate perspective (mean = 3.87 ± 1.06; mean % score = 71.71) toward predatory journals. CONCLUSION: Publishing in a predatory journal, whether done knowingly or unknowingly, can harm authors' reputations as academics, their capacity to submit to other journals, and the quality of their work. According to the results of our study, many researchers still lacked a thorough understanding of the predatory journal publishing model, which is a phenomenon that demands an increasing amount of research, despite hearing about the phenomenon of a predatory journal and having previously attended training.

Traveling the road toward academic promotion for faculty with a DNP degree.

There is a widely recognized need for nursing faculty in the United States. To prepare a practice-ready workforce, schools of nursing are hiring faculty with Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) preparation to ensure clinical expertise is embedded into curriculum by practice experts. However, nurses transitioning from clinical nursing to faculty positions require tailored support and guidance in navigating the academic environment. Preparation for academic promotion is essential to integration into an academic setting. Support in navigating the new environment is essential for building confidence, to lay a foundation for a successful transition, and ultimately retaining these qualified educators. This article provides strategies to support nursing faculty planning to embark on an academic career track and provides guidance on how to prepare these DNP-prepared faculty for career progression and future promotion along academic ranks. These strategies include school and institutional orientation, faculty development plans, mentorship, leadership development, and performance review processes.

Faculty Development on the Use of a Clinical Judgment Model in the Pre-licensure Nursing Curriculum.

Clinical judgment is an essential component of safe nursing practice that pre-licensure nursing students should develop by graduation from accredited nursing programs. For novice nurses, the consequences of underdeveloped clinical judgment skills that do not meet the demands of clinical practice are serious. This theory-practice gap correlates with increased numbers of errors occurring during care delivery, resulting in poorer patient outcomes. From a student perspective, this problem correlates with lower first-time pass rates on the NCLEX licensing exam. For nurse educators, there are uncertainties about how to resolve this complex and costly problem, but faculty development is one evidence-based solution to explore. The purpose of this article is to describe a three-pronged quality improvement project consisting of: 1) a faculty development session to teach faculty to implement the National Council State Boards of Nursing's Clinical Judgment Model (CJM) in their courses; 2) the use of the Clinical Judgment Tool; and 3) the implementation of a faculty champion to sustain and maintain ongoing faculty momentum to foster clinical judgment. This article focuses on how faculty can develop their own CJM faculty development session and use a CJM across the course curriculum.

Transitioning from a Doctor of Nursing Practice clinical role to academic scholar.

Nursing faculty prepared with a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree have unique needs as they transition from their clinical roles into full-time academia. As expert clinicians they share a wealth of knowledge that contributes to quality improvement and implementation of evidence-based practice in healthcare. However, they may lack the preparation needed for scholarship, a requirement for promotion, as well as retention, in many academic organizations. Traditional promotional processes are more in tune with the nursing faculty who have received a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree, in which scholarship and research are a core component of their education and practice. As the number of DNP-prepared faculty increases, supporting successful transition to academia including scholarly productivity is essential to retention especially as nurse faculty shortages persist. Further research and resources are needed to help prepare and support DNP-prepared faculty to develop their scholarship with an increasing need to recognize the additional means of dissemination that these clinical scholars can utilize to meet the requirements of promotion.

Improvement opportunities for the achievement of reciprocal nursing academic-practice partnerships.

American healthcare reform efforts are driving healthcare organizations to demonstrate the ability to reduce costs while improving quality and optimizing healthcare outcomes. Nurses are the largest healthcare clinicians and need proper preparatory education to enter the profession as practice-ready clinicians; however, medical errors and reduced nursing board examination success rates highlight the need for improved nurse academic preparation standards. Evidence has elucidated an expanding nursing education-practice gap problem arising from inadequate integration of academic leadership and faculty within the clinical practice arena. The nursing education-practice gap has been exacerbated by governance structures in academia that limit opportunities for nursing faculty to remain actively engaged in clinical practice settings. To improve new graduate nurse practice readiness, healthcare quality, and cost-effectiveness, academic institutions must partner with healthcare delivery organizations within mutually beneficial models. The purpose of this article is to describe the expanding nursing education-practice gap problem in relevance to American healthcare quality and reform initiatives and to propose innovative solutions assigned with evidence-based standards.

Norwegian nurse educators' self-rating of competencies: a nationwide cross-sectional web-survey.

BACKGROUND: Nurse educators' competencies play a crucial role in the educational quality of nurses. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate how Norwegian nurse educators self-rated their competence domains, and how these competencies were associated background variables. METHODS: The study was designed as a cross-sectional web-survey, and n=154 participated and filled out the Evaluation of Requirements of Nurse Teachers (ERNT) instrument. Educators' mean working experience was 12.9 years (SD 9.2); 86.3 % were permanently employed and 76.8 % had formal supervision training. RESULTS: The nurse educators rated their competence as good on all competence domains and single competence items, and ERNT total mean score was 4.62 (SD 0.28), with relationship with the students rated highest and personality factors rated lowest. The ERNT total mean score was significantly related to academic degree. CONCLUSIONS: Educational leaders in nursing education are recommended to establish a mentoring and supporting team for their educators.

Expert-Type Content Validity Applications to Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects.

Background: Developing rigorous doctor of nursing practice (DNP) projects continues to challenge faculty and doctoral students. To address project rigor, expert content validity methods have been applied to clinical projects. Students implement expert content validity processes to literature-based project components. Objectives: The objectives of this study are to describe some of the developmental phases of DNP projects during the courses of one DNP program and to explore one strategy for increasing the rigor of DNP projects, review details on expert-type content validity methods, and examine literature for projects implementing an alternate application of expert-type content validity and scoring approaches to components of DNP projects. Methods: Expert content validity methods are described for DNP projects, such as guidelines, teaching plans, support groups, and algorithms. They are used to judge components generated from initial content analysis strategies. Types of expert panelists and descriptions of scoring ranks on project components are presented to represent different expert content validity strategies. Results The steps are presented to support expert content validity processes. Conclusions: DNP projects challenge faculty and students to create systematically constructed quality improvement projects on important and interesting clinical problems. The expert context validity process is one approach of enhancing project rigor. Implications for Nursing: An outline offers steps to establish expert content validity for translational DNP projects.

[Subverting the Future of Teaching: Artificial Intelligence Innovation in Nursing Education].

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, including machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, generative AI, the metaverse and other iterations, are rapidly changing the landscape of education. Related technologies not only enhance the teaching and learning process but also improve the quality and availability of educational content. AI facilitates educational transformation, reshapes teaching models, and helps students achieve their personalized learning needs, thus improving learning outcomes, learning efficiencies, and teaching practices. Despite the many AI application cases in nursing management and clinical practice, the application of AI in nursing education remains in its infancy. Machine learning has been used to predict the academic performance and graduation results of nursing students, thereby facilitating the early identification of additional support needs. Natural language processing technology has been used to develop chatbots and virtual teachers to assist learning, providing personalized learning support to help students overcome learning obstacles. Also, generative AI technologies such as ChatGPT (chat generative pre-trained transformer) have been used to create simulated patient cases and as a tool for grading academic writing automatically. Moreover, the combination of generative AI technology and the metaverse has introduced new possibilities to nursing education, allowing students to learn in a more-immersive virtual environment. Despite the significant benefits brought by AI to nursing education, its implementation and integration still face multiple challenges, including high costs, the need to provide technical training to teachers, and the need to address issues such as academic integrity and data privacy. The authors hope this article will help promote interdisciplinary cooperation between nursing educators and information and communication experts and the development of AI-assisted teaching to open a new chapter in nursing education.

Assessment of nursing faculty retirement projections.

BACKGROUND: Nursing faculty retirement is a critical factor contributing to the nursing faculty shortage. PURPOSE: To assess the accuracy of projections on 2016 to 2025 nursing faculty retirements made in a previous study by Fang and Kesten (2017). METHODS: The 2016 to 2022 full-time nursing faculty data collected by American Association of Colleges of Nursing were used to examine the accuracy of the retirement projections for the same years. DISCUSSION: The study found that the mean age of full-time nursing faculty decreased for the first time; the number of faculty retirees and their age distributions projected by Fang and Kesten (2017) were accurate; there was a larger loss of nursing faculty at senior ranks to retirements than was anticipated; nursing faculty aged 50 to 59 in 2015 have made significant progress in doctoral attainment, senior rank, and graduate-level teaching by 2022, but they were still underrepresented in senior ranks compared to the 2016 to 2022 retirees; and for nursing faculty with a PhD degree, their growth was slower than their loss to retirements. CONCLUSION: The findings demonstrate the usefulness of the specific methods for faculty retirement projections. The decline in the mean age of nursing faculty is a positive sign that there is an increased recruitment of younger nurses into academia. The increase in the number of younger nurses entering academia with Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)-degree preparation can be leveraged through PhD-DNP collaboration to prepare practice-ready nursing graduates who contribute to health care improvements. Nursing schools need to implement innovative strategies to mentor younger faculty for their successful succession.

Perceived self-efficacy to teach comprehensive abortion care among nursing and midwifery faculty in higher learning institutions in Rwanda: A mixed method study.

INTRODUCTION: Comprehensive abortion care is an emerging intervention being integrated into nursing and midwifery curricula. Yet, no studies have been conducted in Rwanda to determine whether faculty perceive themselves as capable of teaching comprehensive abortion care. This study aims to evaluate the perceived self-efficacy to teach comprehensive abortion care among nursing and midwifery faculty in higher learning institutions in Rwanda. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The University of Rwanda College of Medicine and Health Sciences Institutional Review Board approved this study (UR-CMHS-IRB No 335/CMHSIRB/2022). In quantitative, a self-administered questionnaire was administered to 98 study participants. Data were entered into Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 and analyzed using Chi-square test with a p-value of 0.05 set as the significance level. In the qualitative part, an interview guide was developed based on quantitative data to understand comprehensive abortion care teaching fully. Data were collected from four focus group discussions with eight participants in each group, entered in Dedoose, and analyzed thematically. RESULTS: Among the 98 study participants who were invited to participate in this study, only 85 filled out the questionnaires. This translates into 86.7% of the response rate. More than half 58.8% had adequate self-efficacy in teaching comprehensive abortion care. A Chi-square test has revealed that being a male, being a midwife, and having more years of working experience in nursing education were significantly associated with self-efficacy in teaching comprehensive abortion care (p value <0.05). In the qualitative phase, 32 study participants participated in four focus group discussions and four themes were identified: a) variability in confidence levels to teach comprehensive abortion care; b) readiness about teaching comprehensive abortion care; c) facilitators of teaching comprehensive abortion care; and d) contextual challenges to teach comprehensive abortion care. CONCLUSIONS: The findings revealed that faculty's self-efficacy in teaching comprehensive abortion care was not adequate. Personal and religious beliefs and institutional barriers were also reported to hinder self-efficacy in teaching comprehensive abortion care. Therefore, intensive comprehensive abortion care training for nursing and midwifery faculty in higher learning institutions should be provided, including values clarification and attitude transformation training for attitudes and beliefs. It is also critical for higher learning institutions to develop strategies for overcoming the challenges faculty face when teaching comprehensive abortion care.