Role of Nurse Educators in Saudi Arabia - Essay Example

. Qualitative Research Proposal Role of Nurse Educators in Saudi Arabia: An Analysis 24 May 2009 Nursing has been for long respected by each and every human being. The profession gets so much respect that it deserves utmost care by the nurses to maintain the respect and regard that the profession has received for so many years. With so much at stake, nurse educators have tough task on hand to provide nurses for the development of nation's health care industry. Nurse educators are tasked to ensure that nursing graduates are fully prepared to function effectively in the clinical setting and at the same time, they are also responsible for scholarly works that would improve the nursing education and nursing practice in general. Nurse educators design, implement, evaluate and revise the academic and continuing curriculum for educating nurses. Various views and opinions of research scholars have been presented to outline the role of nurse educators in the development of health care industry. Grounded theory is used to analyze the data from three hospitals and universities after collecting data from nurse educators, managers and word preceptors. The research proposal also presents the total time consumable for the research along with the expenditure. Introduction The Nursing profession has long been long revered by society as it touches on a very important and sensitive aspect of living and that is none other than health care. Other than doctors, nurses are the one who we entrust our body with and the word 'nursing' itself connotes caring and giving comfort. Nurses serve in the front line against diseases and maladies and it is in this regard that they have earned the admiration and respect that we see society give to them today. It becomes imperative, therefore, that nurses be educated in a way that will make them effective and functional in a rapidly changing health care environment. The responsibility falls upon the unsung heroes called the Nurse Educators. Nurse educators are those in the academia and clinical settings who persevere to educate future nurses and at the same time produce scholarship that will advance the field. They are the force that design, evaluate, implement and revise the current content and pedagogies of the academic and continuing curriculum for nurse education. To become one means to have the competence to inculcate the ideologies and values of nursing care provision among students, ability to determine new roles brought about by socio-professional changes and has the conceptual knowledge and experience to provide a holistic academic and clinical educational experience to the learner. With all this responsibility, one is bound to ask 'How do nurse educators define, perceive and construct their own teaching professionalism especially in light of the changes in health care provision' It is in this spirit that I conduct this study. I seek to determine the roles of a professional nurse educator and their work strategy to know how they deal with the responsibility and at the same time determine how they gauge their efficiency. The focus of the study is mainly on their teaching strategies, how they assess the development of nurses and their action plan for academic and practical sessions. Results from this data is hoped to provide a reference for understanding and improving the nursing educator profession and professionalism. Literature Review Many researchers and scholars have made several contributions towards the various aspects surrounding the profession of nurse educators. Research regarding the core competencies expected of a nurse educator is particularly popular and has led to interesting results. Heath, Potter and Perry (1995) focused on the academic qualification and work setting of nurse educators as they state that nurse educators are primarily those who are working in the academic arena and have attained their master's or doctoral degree. They add they can also be those who work in the staff development department of health care agencies and centers who offer education practical skills in a clinical setting. They are allowed to practice teaching after acquiring teaching certificates with national organization. Krishman & Scott (1998, p. 318) was more definitive when they ascertained the three requirements that must be met to become a nurse educator. First is that a nurse educator is a skilled health-care provider who passed professional nursing standards. He must have also attained graduate studies and finally, he must have sufficient clinical experience to be considered as an advanced generalist or specialist. Bastable (2005) also pointed out that continuing nurse education on education and clinical topics provided by professional organizations and regular specialty certifications are necessary. McDonald (2007) spoke more on the ethical responsibility of nurse educators stating that nurse educators have a responsibility on health care customers who will transfer that care to the students who enter nursing practice. He states that unlike in some academic schools, where grades are distorted, the assessment process in nursing should be trustworthy and educators should obtain high quality information. Further he also states that nurses are in greater demand to meet the future health care needs, in order to provide best quality nurses, nurse educators should be enrolled depending on their experience and qualification. (p. 3- 4) Hodges (2002) was more relevant and specific when she laid out the three basic roles that the nurse educator is expected to fulfill. Primary to these is the Teacher role wherein nurse educators lead in instruction, curriculum and evaluation. This role occurs in several educational contexts including: classroom instruction, curriculum development, clinical instruction and supervision, seminar provision and more recently 'virtual teaching'. The nurse teacher engages students for them to learn and broaden their perspective regarding patients, the community, the health care industry and their profession. The second core competency is in the scholar role wherein Hodges (2002) derives from the research of Boyer (1990) and Pape (2000). In this competency, the nurse educator is expected to produce scholarly material on the aspects of teaching, discovery, integration and application. According to Hegyvary (2000), scholarship for nurse educators requires them to have sufficient knowledge not only in conducting their research but in communicating the knowledge to other people particularly that of their students. They can fulfill this role by designing, collaborating and using previous research not only in nursing education but also in nursing practice and synthesize all the data in a cohesive and creative whole. Thus, the nurse educator is expected to keep abreast of current knowledge and clinical experience and be able to integrate their research in the nursing education practice. O'Neil (1998) gave the third facet of nursing educator role when he pointed out that nurse educators also function as collaborators who develop partnership between the academia and the emerging health care system. He is tasked to develop partnership not only with groups and communities but also with peers, students and administrators. The goal of collaboration is to fully understand, enact and enhance best practices for teacher and scholar roles. Material for the teaching role and value realization from scholarship role can only be made available and possible with the fulfillment of the collaborator role. Hodges (2000) states that the collaborator role is very important for the education of the next generation of students depends upon the ability of the nurse educator to interact with the diverse socio-cultural-technological environment pervading the current scene. Kalb (2008) has essentially the same ideas with Hodges (2002) with the addition that nurse educators should function as a change agent and leader. By that, she means that nursing educators should create a preferred future for nursing education and nursing practice. Also, nursing educators must also function within the educational environment with which they practice their profession. They must also put into consideration political, institutional, social and economic impact on their role. Literature concerning the teaching strategy and content are also proliferating. According to Richards and Digger (2007, p. 222), the goal of nurse educator is to promote health by combing content specific to the realms of nursing, knowledge from educational theories and health behavior models which shall allow for an integrated approach in shaping the health behaviors of the learner. Speaking on best practices on teaching students, Meyer and Van Niekerk (2008) suggest that nurse educators should model their own thinking abilities by addressing a problem or work through a problem in practice with learners. It would be useful to involve the learners to work together which helps them to monitor the effectiveness of their own thinking process. Nurse educators should avail opportunities to the learners to imply all the techniques and theories in practical. The author has suggested using different educational strategies to attain objectives with learners. Nurse educators should guide learners to assess the comfort zone status of patient by asking relevant question to patients, observing the current physical position of patient, taking the patients current physical and mental status and health status into consideration and obtaining information from nursing and medical records of the patient. The nurse educator has to use appropriate communication skills to guide learners in using terminology. Clark (2007) has emphasized strongly on theories and ideas which would help the nurse educators design, implement and evaluate effective learning systems that can relate to nursing curriculum and learning objectives. Using analytical tools such as the Bloom's taxonomy, Gagne's learning theory, Bandura's cognitive learning and self efficacy theory and Mager's goal theory, she explained that there is a need to prepare a curriculum which could be easily understood by the learners. Timing the presentation of material was found to be very important as well as the identification and revision of ineffective learning systems through four point processes of trial and error, deductive and inductive approaches, discovery and social cognitive learning. Other research focuses more on the problems faced by nursing educators. For example, McCoy and Rushing (2005) were more concerned with the difficulties faced by newcomers in the nursing educator role as they often feel a lack of recognition and support from their peers. Also, excellence in the clinical setting does not guarantee excellence in the academic setting as attested by the interviews conducted by McCoy and Rushing (2005). Grossman and Valiga (2005) were more concerned on the decreasing number of master and doctor's graduates serving in the faculty because of the number of retirees and the lure of other high paying private positions. Boice (2000) also noted that the increasing complexity of the health care system is putting pressure on the nurse educators to always update their selves or be rendered obsolete and ineffective. With regards to the setting of the study, Saudi Arabia is a country witnessing a large influx of international nurses coming mainly from Asian countries. Saudi Arabia is served by a variety of multi-specialty hospitals that is deemed to meet the health care needs of its rapidly changing population. Aside from being a tremendous job market, Saudi Arabia is now currently becoming a tourist destination that makes it a more serious concern for the government to provide health care assistance to the foreign nationals as well as to its own citizens. Even though nurse educators have their duties and role specified as a faculty in respective institutes and other private organizations, it is still unknown from the nurse educators perspective as to what strategies or innovative methods do they develop during their teaching process in order to assist the learners in working out their practical as well as theoretical assessment without much problem. Identification of strategies or techniques used by nurse educators will be of immense help in understanding their role of creating and providing effective nursing graduates to the health care industry. Qualitative research would enable to understand the learning outcomes of the learners of various nurse educators by the way of assessing their practical and clinical skills. Purpose and Aim of Research The purpose of this study is to explore the role of nurse educators in Saudi Arabia and following are its aim: To explore the perceptions of nurse educators in Saudi Arabia regarding their profession. To review the documentation on levels of education and experience required for nurse educators at both hospital and academic levels. To determine the parameters of the roles of nurse educators at both clinical and academic levels. To analyze the data on both perceptions and requirements of the roles of nurse educators. Evaluate and present recommendations for the future development of nurse educators in Saudi Arabia. Thematic Framework This study uses Grounded Theory (GT) proposed by Glaser and Strauss (1980) in order to study the role of nurse educators in Saudi Arabia. The method involves obtaining data on their daily activities and generates theories or explanations of human behavior and social processes. Some nurse educators are expected to find it hard to answer some questions posed during the interview. Grounded theory is deemed to be effective and appropriate in collecting the data from the nurse educators from both clinical and academic background in the form of codes or key points derived and interpreted during the conversation with the participants. The analytical tool will facilitate in exploring the setting of human action at the time of interview with the nurse educators, nurses and managers. This will include noting down data from the target groups along with their behavior and other social aspects of clinical and academic setting. The key participants selected to conduct an effective research include nurse educators, managers and ward preceptors. Research Site The research sites selected for the study would ideally include a number of the more prominent multi-specialty hospitals and nursing education providers that is best deemed to provide excellent medical services, i.e. excellent medical and nursing staff. Other bases of selection were proximity to the researcher's area and readiness of the institution to provide assistance to the research. There were three institutions for the academic setting that fulfilled the requirements and they are King Abdul Aziz University, Dar-Al Hekma College, and Effat University. For the clinical setting, the following were chosen: King Abdul Aziz University Hospital, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre and King Fahad National Centre for Children's Cancer and Research. These research settings have been selected to evaluate the role of nurse educators teaching future nursing graduates. Sample The study requires stratified sampling method in order to obtain data as the proposed research site includes three multispeciality hospitals and the same number of learning institutions. Review of available people for interview resulted to the following number of research participants: 10 nurse educators, 2 managers and 30 ward preceptors in each hospital and college/ university. The data will be collected in accordance with the grounded theory of qualitative research methodology in order to analyze and recommend suggestions for the future development in the role of nurse educators. Data Collection Strategies The data to be collected in the study will be through the process of the following three methods. The first method will be the structured interview that will be conducted personally with the nurse educators, managers and word preceptors from both clinical and academic background. Second the scrutiny of recruitment policies of nurse educators from hospitals and universities will be undertaken to identify the norms and procedures that they follow during the time of recruitments and what are their job responsibilities according to the policies. Third is the observation of nurse educators teaching qualities during their teaching and practical session in order to asses what methods do they utilize in the process and how well they do justice to their roles as nurse educators. Data Analysis The data collected will be analyzed in order to provide clear assumptions of the research. The analysis will be carried basing on the grounded theory which includes open, selective and core method of analysis. The data will be analyzed uncategorically and later only those data will be selected which fits in the category of the research question and aim. Only those core data will be taken which will help this research in further study on the role of nurse educators. Justifications regarding the choosing of data shall be offered. Ethical Issues Permission will be sought from the hospital and university authorities to conduct interviews of their staff. Accordingly, consent will be acquired from nurse educators, managers and word preceptors on individual basis so that they know the purpose of research. Interview questions shall be prepared and evaluated for appropriateness to avoid any sensitive issues. Timeline and Budget The researcher will require visiting places where hospital and universities are located to perform interviews. However, it may not be easy to meet the officials because of their expected busy schedules. Therefore it is expected that there will be too several visits but efforts shall be made to ensure that the interview is conducted in the soonest possible time. After the permission is sought, it will take time to receive consent from the participants and later their interviews. The data collected will further need to be collated and compiled in order to arrive at conclusion. For this purpose, a period of 2 years is allotted for the research. Prices ($US) Visits to Hospitals $500 Assistants (Two @ $2000 per year) $4000 Researchers (One @ $12000 per year) $12000 Stationery $750 Total $17250 References 1. Bastable, B. (2005). Nurse as educator: Principles of teaching and learning. Boston: Jones and Bartlett. 2. Clark, Carolyn Chambers (2007) Classroom Skills for Nurse Educators. Jones & Bartlett Publishers 3. Ellis J. and Hartley C. (2003) Nursing in today's world: trends, issues & management, Ed. 8, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 4. Flynn J.P. and Stack M. (2005) The role of the preceptor: a guide for nurse educators, clinicians, and managers, Ed. 2, Springer Publishing Company 5. Glauser, Barney and Strauss, Anselm (1980) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, Ed.11, Aldine Transaction. 6. Hodges, J.A. (2002). 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