J Nurs Educ
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Currently, major deficiencies exist in undergraduate nursing education for end-of-life care. Nursing students report feeling anxious and unprepared to be with patients who are dying. ⋯ In accordance with tenets of Experiential Learning Theory, a Palliative Care Companion program was developed and revised using feedback from initial participants and facilitators. Data collected during the first two semesters indicated increased knowledge of palliative care, improved attitudes about care at the end of life, and fewer concerns about providing nursing care to dying patients, when participating students were compared to their undergraduate peers.
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This article explores the concept of evidence-based nursing education. Because nurse educators incorporate evidence-based practice as a basic tenet of their programs, they assume nursing education itself is evidence based. Nursing education has a body of knowledge on which nurse educators base teaching, educational strategies, and curricular designs, but most of this knowledge is tacit, experiential, and based on practice. ⋯ Nurse educators need to develop the science of nursing education through qualitative and quantitative research, to add to the tacit knowledge underpinning nursing education strategies. When the science of nursing education is adequately developed through rigorous research, we will truly be able to say that nursing education is evidence based. Until then, it may be only a myth.
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Comparative Study
Effects of a Web-based teaching method on undergraduate nursing students' learning of electrocardiography.
This study examined the effects of a Web-based teaching method (versus a traditional lecture method) on undergraduate nursing students' learning of electrocardiography (ECG). The Web-based learning program was developed by the authors and implemented for 4 weeks. The study used a pretest-posttest experimental design. ⋯ Conversely, the ability to interpret ECG recordings was significantly higher among students in the Web-based group (p < .05). No significant differences were found between the two groups in level of motivation or satisfaction with learning. The self-directed, Web-based ECG learning program appears to be effective in helping nursing students to interpret ECG recordings.
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As simulation technology is rapidly expanding, nursing programs are making large investments in this technology, which has great potential for undergraduate nursing programs. Unfortunately, this potential is underestimated and underused. ⋯ The process for simulation technology instruction, leveling content from simple to complex, and faculty resources are discussed. An example of a simulation program is included.
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To increase work force diversity and decrease health disparities, students of color must be successful in nursing programs. Unfortunately, the literature describes numerous barriers to these students' success, originating in both the socioeconomic and cultural environment in which they live and work, and in schools of nursing. ⋯ Eighteen barriers to success were identified, examples of these barriers were extracted from the data, and the caring curriculum was proposed as one possible solution for removing or mitigating these barriers. Principles of the caring curriculum were then used to provide a framework for suggested retention strategies for Hispanic/Latino and American Indian nursing students.