Quality assurance and quality enhancement of the nursing curriculum – happy marriage or recipe for divorce?

Abstract

Background: This study investigated nurse academics' perceptions of a curriculum review process that married a 'top down' quality assurance process with a 'bottom up' quality enhancement process in a Bachelor of Nursing curriculum. Methods:Focus group interviews were held with seven nurse academics on two campuses of a regional Australian university. The data were analyzed thematically. Results:Overall nurse academics found value in both the collegial sharing of ideas in the 'bottom up' unit review meetings and in the 'top down' unit reporting process. However their perceptions of the curriculum review process highlighted a number of tensions that clustered around the following main themes: clarity of communication, sensitivity/validity of review data, the impact of contextual factors, and the risk of ritualized practice. Conclusions:These results highlight that quality assurance and quality enhancement processes can be married, but clear communication is needed about the purposes of the curriculum review process and its constraints, and a mechanism is required to close the quality feedback loop. Nursing academics need to take ownership of the process to find ways to work around contextual constraints that impact on the success of the curriculum review process.

A program quality framework: a collaborative teaching team approach to quality assurance, quality enhancement and staff capacity building

“…Kelder et al ( 14 ) indicate the importance of engaging teachers in collaborative ongoing curriculum evaluation. The continuous curriculum review process developed and evaluated by van de Mortel and Bird ( 9 ), van de Mortel et al ( 15 ), and Bird et al ( 16 ) provides an effective mechanism to do this. While departments ordinarily have a committee to review planned changes to courses/programs, these often operate at the department rather than program level, have limited attendance, and due to the volume of business to be debated and approved, do not generally enable deep consideration of how proposed changes might impact program scaffolding, program leaning outcomes and constructive alignment.…”

“…Learning and teaching scholarship should underpin course design and teaching practice ( 5 , 15 ). Teaching faculty are encouraged to join a Scholarship of Effective Learning and Teaching (SELT) community of practice dedicated to:…”

“…We implemented the ProQual framework in 2016 to drive quality enhancement of our new curriculum. While aspects of this have been previously positively evaluated ( 9 , 15 , 16 , 27 , 28 ), we have not formally evaluated the full framework, however, over the life of the 2016–2021 curriculum, courses with satisfactory student ratings increased by 15%, program retention by 7% and admissions rank cut-offs (an indicator of student demand/program reputation) by 17–21 points. Three years after implementing the SELT group, scholarly publications and conference presentations had doubled.…”