A National Survey of Graduate Family Nursing Educators

Abstract

A descriptive study was undertaken to explore the philosophical and educational beliefs of graduate faculty teaching advanced nursing with families. Data from 177 faculty representing 107 graduate nursing programs accredited by the National LeagueforNursingwere used in the analyses. Descriptive data were gathered on program and faculty demographics, conceptual frameworks that faculty identified as influencing their teaching offamily content, and faculty beliefs about concepts central to family nursing. A Family Nursing Belief Inventory (FNBI) was developed to elicit faculty beliefs. The FNBI consisted of 14 item pairs of dichotomous statements reflecting divergent nursing paradigm (totality and simultaneity) beliefs about thefamily. Results show thatfaculty clearly preferred statements that reflect the beliefs of the simultaneity worldview, whereas most nursing models that influenced their teaching reflect the beliefs of the totality worldview. Less than 1% of respondents taught a corefamily course in graduate programs and the majority offaculty usedfamily rather than nursing frameworks. Seventy-nine percent offaculty reported that a diagnostic taxonomy is not essential in family nursing practice. Continuing dialogue between nursing theorists and educators is necessary.

Family Nursing Education: Faster, Higher, Stronger

“…Richards and Lansbery (1995) later surveyed graduate family nursing educators in the United States. After a 20 year hiatus, finally a new study has recently been funded that will survey family nursing curricula in Family Nurse Practitioner programs in the United States (Sharon Denham, personal communication, January 15, 2010).…”

The Role of the Clinical Laboratory in Teaching and Learning Family Nursing Skills

“…There is little literature on teaching family nursing to graduate students. This may be because there are so few units of study on family nursing offered at the graduate level (Richards & Lansberry, 1995;Schober & Affara, 2001). A program for master's-level specialists in family nursing began in 1993 at a university in Finland (Astedt-Kurki, Paavilainen, Paunonen, & Hieminen, 1998).…”

Working with families: From theory to clinical nursing practice

“…Most leading family nursing scholars (Friedman et al 2003, Wright & Leahey 2005, Hanson 2001 argue that, while undergraduate programs prepare registered nurses to work with families at a beginning level, graduate nurse education is required for advanced specialist practice with families. However, there are only a few postgraduate programs with a major focus on family nursing reported in the international literature (Richards & Lansberry 1995). (is there any literature later than 1995 to support this?…”