A Scoping Review of Nurse Educator Competencies

Abstract

ver the last decade, nursing has seen a significant decrease in the preparation of newly graduated students from nursing programs to enter practice. Kavanagh and Szweda 1 reported in 2017 that a mere 23% of newly graduated nurses were competently prepared for residency programs. In 2021, new graduate nurse preparedness had not improved and, in fact, had significantly dropped from 23% of nurses prepared to transition to practice to 9%. 2 Scholars have been advocating for a revolutionary change in nursing education to meet the increasingly complex demands in health care for many years. Benner and colleagues 3 had called for a radical transformation of nursing education over a decade ago that included an emphasis on clinical reasoning and integrating knowledge into the context of practice.Considering these reports and a need to better measure clinical judgment to determine whether entry-level nurses can provide safe and quality care, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) updated the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX). The new examination will incorporate a case study approach to evaluate the critical thinking and clinical judgment skills of new nurses through the Next Generation NCLEX (NGN) project in April 2023. 4 Concurrently, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) 5 developed The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education in 2021, outlining essential competencies expected of graduates of baccalaureate, master's, and doctor of nursing practice (DNP) programs to meet the changing demands of the nursing profession using a competency-based approach to nursing education. 5 The AACN's Essentials provides a progressive framework of domains and competencies needed to practice nursing professionally and competently in the 21st century. 5 A competency-based approach can facilitate the synthesis and transfer of knowledge to clinical practice in an increasingly diverse and global

Teaching to learn, learning to teach: Clinical thinking tools to support novice clinical educators, preceptors and students

“…The global shortage of nurses and by extension the shortage of nursing educators has led to a situation where many clinical instructors and preceptors are new to teaching and may even be relatively new to nursing. [16,17] By utilizing the Clinical Thinking Tools as a teaching strategy in clinical practice education, both students and novice clinical instructors and preceptors may be better supported to teach, assess, and develop critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and clinical decision-making in an increasingly complex healthcare environment.…”

“…[11][12][13] Similarly, nurse preceptors are responsible for developing and validating the competencies of new graduate nurses and post-licensure nurses new to specialty areas, but many do not have the education, training or preparation to do so adequately. [14][15][16] Adding to the challenge, the severity of the nursing shortage in many areas has resulted in many clinical instructors and preceptors being relatively inexperienced as nurses themselves, [17] and not having the experiential knowledge base on which to guide learners' critical thinking, clinical reasoning and clinical decision-making.…”

How Nurse Faculty in Saudi Arabia View Their Competencies in All Aspects of the Faculty Role

“…In 2005, the National League for Nursing published core competencies for nurse educators with task statements to validate and standardize the nurse faculty role (Christensen & Simmons, 2019). Nevertheless, in their scoping review of nurse educator competencies, Wells-Beede et al (2023) identified the need for mentorship, lack of preparation, and vague operationalization of the NLN core competencies as roadblocks to effectively assist students’ transition to practice. There have been limited published studies on Saudi nurse faculty competencies.…”

Informatics Competency Assessment of Nursing Faculty

“…Yet, preparation of nursing graduates remains uneven. The reasons for this uneven preparation include a lack of clear direction on how to teach informatics competencies and what competencies to teach, competing curriculum demands, insufficient resources, rapid developments in new technologies that include artificial intelligence, lack of clarity on requisite competencies of nurse educators, 8 and lack of faculty knowledge. 9,10 Having nursing faculty self-assess their competencies followed by education to address knowledge and skill gaps is one way to develop faculty skills so that they, in turn, can prepare nursing graduates.…”