Research Paper on Background of the Gap in Nursing Education

Introduction

Nursing is a very delicate field and needs a lot of keenness in training and practice. To ensure that nursing practice is to the highest level of quality and excellence, it is important to have benchmarks and guidelines. In reality, a nursing practice should at all times be a reflection of sound and refined ethical standards. Taking care of patients requires more than nurses applying their scientific knowledge. A nurse has the responsibility to think critically, solve particular problems, and establish the best solutions for their patients. However, there has been a disparity concerning how the nursing curriculum has been devised to offer cultural competence education to nursing students.

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Although there is no specific reason why there is a gap in the nursing education program, globalization has contributed highly in dictating the need for cultural competency education to nursing students for them to be able to serve patients from different cultural backgrounds. In this regard, the focal point entails looking at the Critical Race Theory (CRT), which can be used by the students and other nursing education program stakeholders to help develop a new curriculum that meets the needs of cultural competency. The Critical Race Theory encourages the use of positive criticism in the provision of quality and standard education. It empowers the students with the ability to criticize negative and discriminative policies that hinder and limit their development and encourage oppression. CRT expands students understanding of their potential and enhances their feeling of being equal to other human beings regardless of race, thus freeing them from the feeling of being inferior and with limited ability compared to others (Delgado, Stefancic & Harris, 2017). The theory encourages students to seek more knowledge and information to be competitive and able to fight oppression from a more technical and informed point.

The Problem Statement in Nursing Education

The nursing education has been experiencing some challenges related to producing culturally competent nurses fit to be marketable in the ever-changing healthcare sector. The old ways of teaching cannot deliver qualified nurses. Therefore, there is a need to develop a new curriculum that can be used to offer cultural competency to nursing students. One of the best ways to achieve this can be through the use of E-learning. Therefore, the new curriculum should consider incorporating the use of E-learning into the system. However, there could be challenges that might hinder the institutions from achieving the new curriculum goals. In light of this, leadership is highly encouraged to devising the new curriculum.

Description of Course

For a new curriculum to be effective, all parties involved are supposed to partake their roles. For students, competent nursing learners are supposed to engage in self-evaluation on a regular basis to ensure that their cultural competency is updated. They should do this due to the need to improve their skills. They can further achieve it by seeking constructive feedback from the rest of the stakeholders regarding their practice. As such, they should take the feedback and evaluate their performance. A nurse is also required to participate actively in the peer reviews appropriately. These activities help them review their performance in relation with other people. The nurse should also reflect regularly on the latest advancement regarding the profession to make sure that they are up to date with the skills and regulations.

Rationale

With the need for the change in the curriculum, it is important to consider using effective ways of its development. Therefore, the use of E-learning is indispensable because most of the students in the contemporary world are using different online platforms to obtain the information they require. Also, the proposal to use leadership in developing the curriculum is critical in the nursing programs development.

Literature Review Synthesis

The exponential growth of information technology has consequently pressured the higher learning institutions to incorporate the innovations in their learning curriculums. For the new curriculum to be efficient, it is indispensable to integrate modern day teaching strategies to enrich the information about cultural competency to the nursing students. For instance, the use of E-learning in the nursing curriculum ensures that the higher learning institutions cope up with the changing facets in the international environment. Most higher learning institutions have begun implementing online educational technology in line with global developments.

According to Delgado, Stefancic and Harris (2017), their study on E-learning, precisely, the Moodle/WebCT/Blackboard platform at universities identified that students' gender, E-learning usefulness, and the students' interest are the significant factors influencing E-learning acceptance in higher learning institutions. They discovered that the level of interest among the students determines the adaptation of E-learning in higher learning institutions. The availability of time by the students also influences the utilization of E-learning as an educational medium in the higher learning institutions. Additionally, the findings suggested that female students perceived E-learning as less exciting as compared to their male counterparts. In this regard, it is evident that nursing students have to endorse E-learning to make it easier for it to be incorporated into the new curriculum.

Ntalianis, Andreatos, and Sgouropoulou (2018) support the findings by depicting that personal barrier, technological and institutional issues hinder E-learning implementation in higher learning institutions. The researchers provided that individual factors like attitudes and motivation affected the perception of E-learning by students. They also outlined that the learners' technological skills determine their overall understanding of the educational medium which can as well serve as a barrier. However, the researchers pointed out that the traditional learning system is less advantageous as compared to the E-learning system. The classroom learning limits the students control concerning their learning freedoms. E-learning has the potential to provide students with a significant level of control through offering a flexible mode of study, location, content, and timing which exceeds the traditional method of education by a significant margin. E-learning is further learner-centered which empowers and motivates employees to learn at their convenience. Pelet (2014), however, evaluates on the inaccuracies and obstacles students endure while making application for E-learning options. It, therefore, poses inconveniencies to students engaging or planning to participate in E-learning among these universities.

For the students to get useful clarification, they have to countercheck with the scientific research and the department of education that the employers and government departments accredit their perceived online degrees. Nevertheless, Pelet (2014) reveals that there is massive potential in the online study where multiple universities are anxiously recruiting students into their online and distance learning modes. The practice is evident as most countries are currently perceived as a priority market especially by higher learning institutions with high-ranking faculty schools. Even though E-learning is gaining popularity across the globe, there are still multiple challenges facing the system. One of the problems includes lack of knowledge to understand the system. Despite the massive benefits E-learning can bring, students, learning institutions, and facilitators have to follow the system for it to yield fruits. The author has also noted network issues as a barrier to effective implementation of E-learning technology. Some of the students have a hard time accessing online information due to poor connectivity and technological structures. Students' demographics further determine E-learning efficiency. Technological experiences, gender, interests, and learning styles determine the system's adoption.

Collaboration Between Nursing Students and Practicing Nurses

A key aspect of collaboration is communication. As a close party to the patient, the nurse has to communicate all the significant and crucial information to the patient, family members, health providers, and other notable people concerning the progress of the patient. Nursing students have to closely work with nurses in practice to understand some of these deliberations as part of their placement facets. In the same line, a nurse should be able to collaborate with the patients, families, and health providers to develop goals and plans that will help improve the overall health of the patient. Stewart and DeNisco (2019) add that nurses have the role to partner with others to create changes that generate a positive outcome. As such, they should be able to document referrals as well as the provision of continuity.

Most of the challenges facing collaboration are based on poor leadership skills. The improvement of leadership skills will play a key role in improving all the other skills and standards necessary for a nurse. Therefore, leadership standards should be given a key priority before the rest of the rules. In addition to that, a collective approach should be used when registering nurses. An assessment of all the necessary skills other than the academic qualifications alone may be limited. There is a need to determine all the other skills and standards. Educational qualification may not necessarily mean that an individual will be competent in their work. There is more than criterion that an individual needs to concentrate on effectively.

The collaboration of nurses may also be affected by the individual difference between the staff. Institutions should set rules and regulations that govern employee relationships. Moreover, proper mechanisms should be designed to help solve staff cases of misunderstanding and differences. The latter helps to reduce the overflow of this difference into the practice of the profession. In the end, this might affect the patients in a significant way, as well as the general performance of a hospital. Besides, these are some of the things that nursing students are supposed to learn to enrich their skills as far as diversity and practice ethics are concerned.

Professional Practice Evaluation

Nurses are expected to evaluate their nursing practice in regards to professional practice standards and guideline, rules, relevant statutes, and regulations. The assessment helps a nurse identify their weaknesses and, therefore, set up strategies towards improvement in these specific areas of weakness. According to Stewart and DeNisco (2019), self-evaluation for nurses is significant as it helps a nurse challenge themselves and set new goals for themselves. For new nurses, self-evaluation is particularly crucial as it helps them master their strong points and work on their weaknesses. Self-evaluation is a process that does not have any particular format. Instead, individuals should be creative in establishing ways of evaluating their performance in practice.

Some institutions and hospitals have already set up programmers to ensure that nurses can improve and update their practice skills through self-evaluation. On the other hand, policies require the nurses to undergo self-evaluation by taking feedback from the rest of the nurses and patients as well. The ANA encourages nurses to be more frequent with self-evaluation instead of relying on their performance blindly. As a regulator of nursing in America, ANA is...