Creating what sort of professional? Master's level nurse education as a professionalising strategy (original) (raw)
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Advances in Health Sciences Education, 2009
There has been a proliferation of taught masters’ degrees for nurses in recent years, and like masters’ programmes in other disciplines, the aspirations of such educational endeavours are far from unanimous. This article reports on part of a wider study, and focuses on a qualitative analysis of the perspectives of two key sets of stakeholders, namely academic education providers, and senior clinical nursing personnel, on masters’ education for nurses. Fifteen participants were interviewed in depth, and data were subjected to a qualitative content analysis. Findings indicated that while both sets of participants invoked the discourse of the ‘knowledgeable doer’, that is, the notion of amalgamating a high level of theoretical knowledge with practical know how, there were also differences in how each group deployed this discourse. Academics tended to emphasise the ‘knowing that’ or theoretical aspect of the discourse, whereas those in senior clinical roles adduced the practical component more strongly. We argue that the discourse of the ‘knowledgeable doer’ is far from stable, unified and universally agreed, but rather comprises competing elements with some emphasised over others according to the subject position of the particular individual. We locate the diverse perspectives of the two sets of stakeholders within debates about the status of masters’ programmes in relation to vocational and liberal education.
Critical analysis of the discourse of competence in professional nursing practice
2009
This project aims to provide a critical analysis of the discourse of competence in professional nursing practice, from an historical and contemporary perspective. Through the cultivation of critical thinking, I seek to identify how power operates within this discourse to shape nurse subjectivity. This critique aims to identify the conditions that construct classifications and differences as they relate to competence in nursing practice, and to provide a collection of rich knowledge, ideas and patterned ways of thinking, that seek to assist nurses to explore themselves within the discourse. Critical analysis of the discursive practices as effects of the discourse signifies how the nurse is positioned within the discourse and provides meaning behind the existence of the discourse. An analysis of the key findings will be presented along with a conclusion and recommendations for practice. Methodology and Theoretical Framework. The chosen methodology is a critical analysis of the discourse of competence that draws on theoretical techniques using a Foucauldian method of critique. The theoretical framework for this project draws on the writings of French Historian and Philosopher, Michel Foucault (1926-1984), regarded as the most influential thinker of our time. I have been guided by Penny Powers (2002), and Danaher, Schirato & Webb (2000) interpretation of Michel Foucault's works. Findings The nursing profession is committed to developing and maintaining practitioners that are competent in their field. This focus on competence is largely driven by the nursing professions commitment toward ensuring the health and safety of the consumers of health care. Although external forces largely shape nursing, it is also strongly influenced by its own practitioners, their vision, their confidence and their image of themselves. i Conclusion The discourse of competence in professional nursing practice is a product of professional ethics. Professional nursing competence continues to be shaped by historical and contemporary influences.
Response to ‘the Trojan horse of nurse education by Roger Watson and David Thompson’
Nurse Education Today, 2004
Professors Watson and Thompson present a gloomy picture of the state of nursing in the UK. Inevitably with rhetoric there is a kernel of truth, but in common with recent events in political life in Westminster, much spin doctoring. They suggest there was once a halcyon period before integration of the health profession disciplines into the higher education sector in the 1990s. This was a time when a small elite grouping of universities with departments of nursing were engaged in the production of a few graduate, even fewer postgraduate, educated nurses and research scholarship in keeping with the traditional values of a University. These departments and their incumbents were unfettered by the responsibilities of mass production of a nursing workforce, were laudably focussed on the generation of knowledge to underpin the emerging discipline, and were left to get on with their work without any call to account by bureaucratic management. My reading of their argument is as follows: post integration the challenges of mass education, coupled with inadequately prepared academic staff, and the introduction of management has resulted in a poor quality higher education experience for students, an expanded and largely ill-equipped academic workforce and a less than research expert professorial leadership. Further, that these demands on the expanded number of departments of nursing in universities are in some way culpable for creating many of the challenges currently faced in the sector. These include widening participation and robust systems for accreditation of prior and experiential learning which (they imply) have wrought havoc on the very underpinning of what it means to be a university and so undermined the quality of education. The solution offered is that much of the business currently undertaken in the name of nursing in higher education should shift, and presumably the academic (teaching) staff, into the further education sector.
Education of Nurses: Detachment Between Undergraduation Courses and Professional Practices
2013
This study aimed at analyzing the relationship between training and professional practice of nurses as described by reported experiences. This is a descriptive research with qualitative approach. The study subjects were 14 nurses enrolled in a stricto sensu graduation program. The data were collected in October 2012, through a semistructured form with the following guiding question: “In your professional performance as a nurse, did you find a situation of detachment between the undergraduation teaching and the professional practice?” The data were analyzed by Content Analysis Technique. We have identified a detachment between undergraduation education and professional practice of nursing professionals in relation to nursing care, whether to the planning and execution of nursing care shares, the management of the nursing staff and the multiprofessional work. The university education should enable a critical viewpoint of the profession, showing the importance of the social and politic...
Professional identity in nursing: Are we there yet?
Nurse Education Today, 2012
Nursing in the United Kingdom (UK) has been part of higher education for more than a decade and is now moving towards graduate status as a profession. Increasingly, through adherence to good practice guidelines and professional body regulation, the profession is incrementally involving communities of reference to help shape current and future identity. The desire to articulate the impact of nursing practice underscores the new undergraduate programmes and propels professional preparation beyond an existence at the fuzzy fringes of medicine towards a unique and fully fledged contemporary identity.
The duality of professional practice in nursing: Academics for the 21st century
Nurse Education Today, 2011
Although pre-registration nursing in the United Kingdom (UK) is moving towards a graduate exit, the vocational/professional debate is still live and continues to be played out in both popular and professional literature. This study considers the nature of contemporary academic communities and the challenge of duality in professional nursing life. More than a decade after the move into Higher Education (HE) however the role of the academic is still controversial, with much of the debate focussed on the nature of clinical credibility. This article considers the dimensions of academic nursing, reports the views of academics and clinicians and introduces a model of working that could potentially harness and blend the skills of academics and clinicians, nurturing a culture of applied scholarship throughout the professional/academic journey.
Higher Education, 2012
This article is a study of the competing academic and professional identity frameworks of lecturers whose discipline has only recently become part of the business of higher education. The article engages with important questions about higher education change and purpose, standards and parity among disciplines. Taking a critical ethnographic approach, it combines policy discussion of shifting higher educational and nurse education regimes with an insider investigation into the attempts of a group of new nurse lecturers in a pre-1992 English university to make sense of their work and identity in an already contested site. These experiences and perceptions are analysed from the perspectives of autonomy, status and rival knowledge regimes. By underlining the diversity of lecturer experiences in these terms, the article contributes to discussion of new stratification. It suggests that despite the apparent merging in many respects of professional and academic frameworks, higher education practitioners in such newly 'academic' disciplines can still find traditional professional identities more reliable conferrers of meaning than academic ones.