Nursing Education & Support Courses, Liberal Education Foundation and Teaching Effectiveness
Evaluation of Support Courses and the Liberal Education Foundation and Nursing Education, Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness in Nursing Education, Student Evaluation of Teaching Strategies In Nursing Education.
Evaluation of Support Courses and the Liberal Education Foundation and Nursing Education
Liberal education is fundamental to professional education. Expected outcomes for the liberal arts component of professional programs have received much attention in recent years (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2002). Expected outcomes for today’s college students include effective communication skills; the use of quantitative and qualitative data in solving problems; and the ability to evaluate various types of information, work effectively within complex systems, manage change, and demonstrate judgment in the use of knowledge.
In addition, students should demonstrate a commitment to civic engagement, an understanding of various cultures and global issues, and the ability to apply ethical reasoning. The goals of the liberal arts curriculum should be congruent with the university mission.
Nursing faculty should work collaboratively with faculty across disciplines to ensure that the general education curriculum supports the expectations of a twenty-first-century liberal education. Evaluation questions about general education courses should address the extent to which the courses selected enable student learning and contribute to the expected outcomes.
They should also be examined for sequencing to ensure that the support courses are appropriately placed to ground and complement the major and enrich the data mix for the organization and use of knowledge in practice.
To develop evaluation questions related to the general education courses, faculty must first articulate what the rationale is for each course, what the expected outcomes are from the courses, and how the courses support the major to provide a broad, liberal education.
When the expectations are clear, it is easier to select the measures needed to determine whether expectations have been met. Evaluation of the outcomes of the general education courses will be discussed in the section on outcomes. External accrediting agencies also have expectations about liberal education. The ACEN, NLN CNEA, and the CCNE state that a liberal arts education provides a strong foundation for nursing.
A liberal arts foundation enhances the knowledge and practice of a nurse (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2013; NLN CNEA, 2015; Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education [CCNE], 2013).
Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness In Nursing Education
Evaluation of teaching effectiveness involves assessment of teaching strategies (including instructional materials), assessment of methods used to evaluate student performance, and assessment of student learning.
Teaching strategies are effective when students are actively engaged, when strategies assist students to achieve course objectives, and when strategies provide opportunities for students to use prior knowledge in building new knowledge.
Teaching effectiveness improves when teaching strategies are modified on the basis of evaluation data. To demonstrate and document teaching effectiveness, faculty need multiple evaluation methods (Johnson & Ryan, 2000).
Evaluation methods may include student feedback about teaching effectiveness obtained through course evaluations and focus group discussions, feedback provided through peer review, formal testing of teaching strategies, and assessment of student learning.
Student Evaluation of Teaching Strategies in Nursing Education
The institution or nursing department may develop course evaluations to obtain student feedback on teaching effectiveness. The advantage of internally developed evaluations is that they can be customized to the program. The primary disadvantage of internally developed tools is that they may lack reliability and validity.
Standardized evaluation tools, such as those found in Individual Development and Educational Assessment (IDEA), offered by the Individual Development and Educational Assessment Center at Kansas State University, and the National Survey of Student Engagement, offered by the Indiana University School of Education Center for Postsecondary Research and Planning, have documented reliability and validity and provide opportunities to compare results among and between academic programs, departments, schools with the institutional score, and a national benchmark.
Focus groups have been used extensively in marketing and social research, and have the potential to serve as powerful tools for program evaluation (Wilson, Morreale, Waineo, & Balon , 2013). A focus group discussion with students can provide a qualitative assessment of teaching effectiveness.
Focus groups provide an opportunity to obtain insights and to hear student perspectives that may not be discovered through formal course evaluations. The focus group leader should be an impartial individual with the ability to conduct the session.
The leader should clearly state the purpose of the session, ensure confidentiality, provide clear guidelines about the type of information being sought, and explain how information will be used. Group leaders should solicit opinions from all participants, record all comments, and produce a formal report (Nestel et al., 2012).
The reliability and validity of information obtained from a focus group discussion is enhanced when the approach is conducted as research with a purposeful design and careful choice of participants.
However, the danger is that students may not be willing to share negative aspects of the course or faculty because of the fear of the information not being confidential. It is important to develop a rapport between the focus group members and the interviewers so that there is mutual trust and respect.