Description

The 21st century presents many challenges to healthcare systems worldwide, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or climate changes. To address current and future health systems' challenges, advanced practice nurses and future nursing researchers must be adequately educated with the best available evidence. Many national and international organizations emphasize that master's and doctoral education programs are essential to prepare and equip nurses to demonstrate leadership, participate in organizational changes, and enhance the quality of care provided in healthcare systems.

Learning in Nursing Education

In practice, educators implement various strategies in nursing programs, such as simulations, peer discussion groups, clinical vignettes, and lectures. Educational strategies refer to the approaches and methods used by educators to achieve the intended core learning objectives. Since the choice of educational strategies can influence learning outcomes and consequently the quality of master's and doctoral nursing education, it is important to distinguish between them and to better understand how they are used and studied.

There is often a gap between the practice of education in universities and evidence-based knowledge. This could be explained by the fact that educators are often faced with the idea that there is no best practice in education, that there is no way to know what is the most effective, or that the latest trend must be the best way to teach. But, education should always be informed by formal scientific research. Therefore, educators need to have access to scientific research, such as knowledge synthesis.

Several knowledge syntheses highlight the educational strategies used with students completing a Bachelor of Science in nursing. However, we know little about educational strategies and their characteristics used explicitly to educate future advanced practice nurses, educators, and researchers. To date, no knowledge synthesis has ever focused on educational strategies for nurses in master and doctoral programs.

Nonetheless, one scoping review aimed to determine the theories of learning and methods used in graduate education in health sciences. While relevant, this review included only eight studies on nursing education (15 % of all studies included) from 2001 to 2016, which we believe is not representative of master's and doctoral nursing education studies. In addition, because the findings are broad and relate primarily to medicine, they do not provide specific guidance to nursing educators and researchers.

Furthermore, the scoping review of Hernon et al. examined the use of educational technologies in undergraduate and graduate nursing education. Although interesting, this knowledge synthesis does not distinguish the educational strategies used exclusively in master's and doctoral nursing education and is limited to the use of educational technologies. Because it is possible that nurse educators at the master's and doctoral levels are not systematically using educational technologies, it seems necessary to explore and document the variety of educational strategies used at these levels of nursing education.

Scoping reviews can be useful in determining the extent of knowledge about a concept or area of study and identifying research gaps. In addition, they can serve as a precursor to a systematic review of effectiveness.

This quantitative study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of study strategies among nursing students at Ninevah University's College of Nursing during the academic year 2022-2023. A sample of 300 nursing students was randomly selected, and data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire. Correlation analysis revealed significant positive correlations between study hours per week, study groups, and practice quizzes with overall study effectiveness rating. However, no significant correlation was found for study app usage. The findings suggest that increasing study hours, engaging in study groups, and utilizing practice quizzes can enhance study effectiveness for nursing students. These results have implications for the development of effective study strategies in nursing education, benefiting students, educators, and policymakers.

Nursing Education

There has been a shift in higher education in Europe since the turn of the millennium, from a teacher-centered, knowledgedissemination educational approach to a student-centered approach that is more focused on learning experiences. The number of students enrolled in higher education has increased, as has the diversity of the students, including in relation to age. There has also been an enhancement in the technology used in health care and nursing education and an increase in the quantity of the information being taught. To manage these challenges, teachers in nursing education are adopting new ideologies that are more focused on student-centered learning.

The history of nursing education started with Florence Nightingale, who opened a nursing school in London in 1860, at which the nursing students were expected to full fill the Victorian female ideal of the time to be faithful, loyal and submissive. The Nightingale Home and Training School for Nurses was dedicated to communicating the philosophy and practice of its founder and patron, Florence Nightingale. Later, nursing education was administered at universities, in the United States (US) as early as 1909. In other countries, such as Sweden, nursing education became integrated into universities about 70 years later, in 1977. This transition to universities occurred, in part, because of the view that the prior nursing training was too vocational in nature and the educational methods did not challenge the students enough. The transformation to universities meant a change in nursing education from being occupational preparation to being an educational program based on research; thus, nursing became an academic subject. Nursing education now aims to develop students’ self-awareness, critical thinking, ability to initiate change and ability to full fill a professional role.

Teachers in nursing education are now often encouraged to use student-centered learning to meet the pedagogical requirements of the 21st century. There are an increasing number of students in nursing education classrooms, including students with more diverse needs and students of all ages. There is also a need to manage an increasing amount of scientific information in nursing education. To be able to practice student-centered learning and to adhere to research and policy documents, there is a need to further clarify the meaning and use of student-centered learning. Without knowing what student-centered learning involves, it is not possible to practice, evaluate, or further develop the concept in nursing education.