Nursing Education and Evaluation of Curriculum and Curriculum Organization
Curriculum Evaluation in Nursing Education, Evaluation of Curriculum Organization in Nursing Education.
Curriculum Evaluation in Nursing Education
One of the most critical elements of program effectiveness is curriculum design. Curriculum design is an organizing framework that arranges the curriculum elements into a logical order for learning. Curriculum design provides direction to both the content of the program and the teaching and learning processes involved in program implementation.
Curriculum content involves both discipline-specific knowledge and the liberal arts foundation. Before the curriculum design can be developed, faculty must first determine their definition of the discipline of knowledge so that they may select courses that will best serve the students to prepare to practice. Faculty must determine what ways of knowing, or methods of inquiry, are characteristic of the discipline and what skills the discipline demands.
Program goals and outcome statements provide a guide for the development of the curriculum. The curriculum design and content should be congruent with the nursing program philosophy. Philosophy should define the concepts of person, health, nursing, and education.
Those definitions provide some guidance for what should be in the curriculum and how it should be organized. The program goals link the mission and faculty belief statements (philosophy) to the curriculum design, teaching and learning methods, and outcomes. Consequently, the evaluation of the curriculum builds on the evaluation of mission and goals.
Evaluation of Curriculum Organization in Nursing Education
Curriculum must be appropriately organized to move learners along a continuum from program entry to program completion. The principle of vertical organization or scaffolding guides both the planning and the evaluation of the curriculum. Vertical organization or scaffolding provides the rationale for the sequencing or building of curricular content elements (Brown, Bourke-Taylor, & Williams, 2012).
For example, nursing faculty often use depth and complexity as sequencing guides; that is, given content areas may occur in subsequent levels of the curriculum at a level of greater depth, breadth, and complexity. Faculty may also use a simple to complex model where the curriculum begins with what the faculty defines as simpler concepts and builds to more complex concepts.
In evaluation of the curriculum, faculty must assess for increasing depth and complexity to determine whether the sequencing was useful to learning and progressed to the desired outcomes. Determination of whether course and level objectives demonstrate sequential learning across the curriculum during each semester can be used as a test of vertical organization.
The analysis can be performed using Bloom’s (1956) Taxonomy as a guide for determining whether objectives follow a path of increasing complexity. Bloom’s Taxonomy was adapted to demonstrate the levels of learning and relate those levels to verbs.
The concept of sequencing related to the vertical organization helps guide the curriculum structure so that new information and experiences are not presented until existing knowledge has been assimilated. In other words, what prior knowledge must be present to provide a link for new knowledge in long-term memory? Often faculty believe everything needs to be learned at once.
Of course this is not possible. An appropriate question is: “What entry skills and knowledge does the student need as a condition of subsequent knowledge and experiences?” How faculty answer this question will determine curriculum design and implementation. The evaluation question would address the extent to which students have the entry-level skills needed to progress sequentially in the curriculum.
This is a critical question in light of the changing profile of students entering college-level programs. It is often difficult to determine which prerequisite skills should be required for entry, and which should be acquired concurrently. Computer skills are a good example. Students enter programs with varying abilities in using computers.
It is necessary to determine the prerequisite skills needed and the sequence in which advanced skills should be acquired during the program of learning. The principle of linear congruence, sometimes called horizontal organization or alignment assists faculty in determining the concurrent nature of courses during each semester or year level (Brown et al., 2012).
This alignment means that the same concepts are built in more depth in each course. The principle of internal consistency is important to the evaluation of the curriculum. The curriculum design is a carefully conceived plan that takes its shape from what its creators believe about people and their education as defined in the program philosophy. The intellectual test of a curriculum design is the extent to which the elements fit together.
Four elements should be congruent: course objectives and outcomes, content taught, teaching and learning strategies, and assessments (Willett, Marshall, Broudo , & Clarke, 2007). Evaluation efforts should include examination of the extent to which the objectives and outcomes are linked to the mission and belief statements. Program objectives should be tracked to level and course objectives.
One method of assessing internal consistency is through the use of a curriculum matrix or map (Willett et al., 2007). The curriculum map is a visual representation that lists all nursing courses and shows the placement of major concepts flowing from the program philosophy and conceptual framework.
It also demonstrates the relationship of the learning outcomes to the curriculum. Curriculum mapping provides a broad picture of the curriculum and its components. This allows you to see where topics are taught and whether there are gaps or redundancies, as well as inconsistencies.
Some nursing programs use a specific conceptual framework that identifies essential program “threads” and provides further direction to curriculum development and implementation. Congruency between program threads, program goals, course objectives, and course content will also need to be assessed.