Social Justice in Nursing Education: Leap into Action

Abstract

Objective: Nursing students must be educated on their role in creating a social justice agenda in healthcare; therefore, academia must establish effective methods to teach these essential concepts. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of an integrated approach to learning social justice. This research provides evidence of the potential efficacy and utility of interactive teaching strategies in the affective domain of nursing students. Methods: The intervention, select affective pedagogical strategies, was designed to integrate content into each semester of the undergraduate nursing curriculum, each were interactive in nature and enhanced the affective learning for the student. The approach aimed at integration of these strategies in a way that decreased further burden for faculty, yet created an environment that enhances the understanding of social justice. Using a pre/posttest design, this study administered the Social Justice Attitudes Scale (SJS), a 24-item questionnaire which is categorized into four sub-scales. A sample of 86 undergraduate nursing students completed the pre-test in the first semester of their nursing program and the post-test in the final semester of their nursing program. Results: The Paired Wilcoxon Rank Sum test was conducted to determine the difference between the pre-test median and the post-test median for each of the four subscales of the SJS; significance set at an alpha of 0.05, all four statistical analyses resulted in a p=<0.001. Conclusion: Reviewing pedagogy in nursing curriculum is an arduous task, but is necessary in order to understand instances in which courses may be lacking in socializing nursing students to the importance of professional nursing values, such as social justice. Integrating affective pedagogical strategies across the continuum of a baccalaureate nursing program has the potential to improve knowledge and intention to act regarding social justice.