Abstract
BackgroundThe number of doctoral programmes in nursing has multiplied rapidly throughout the world. This has led to widespread concern about nursing doctoral education, specifically with regard to the quality of curricula and faculty, as well as to the availability of appropriate institutional resources. In South Africa, no study of these issues has been conducted at a national level.ObjectiveTo explore and describe the quality of nursing doctoral education in South Africa from the perspectives of deans, faculty, doctoral graduates and students.MethodA cross-sectional survey design was used. All deans (N = 15; n = 12), faculty (N = 50; n = 26), doctoral graduates (N = 43; n = 26) and students (N = 106; n = 63) at South African nursing schools that offer a nursing doctoral programme (N = 16; n = 15) were invited to participate. Data were collected by means of structured email-mediated Quality of Nursing Doctoral Education surveys.ResultsOverall, the graduate participants scored their programme quality most positively of all the groups and faculty scored it most negatively. All of the groups rated the quality of their doctoral programmes as good, but certain problems related to the quality of resources, students and faculty were identified.ConclusionThese evaluations, by the people directly involved in the programmes, demonstrated significant differences amongst the groups and thus provide valuable baseline data for building strategies to improve the quality of doctoral nursing education in South Africa.
Highlights
The nursing profession is challenged by market demands, compelling expectations of more efficient and better quality services, as well as escalating financial pressures (Ketefian et al 2005; Woodford & Nyquist 2005)
We propose that examining the perspectives of different groups of people involved in doctoral programmes in South Africa (SA) using global QSCI, will provide baseline data that will allow threats to quality to be identified, as well as allow a countrywide strategy to improve the quality of doctoral education in nursing in SA to be developed
Reflecting on the average age of doctoral graduates and students, from whom we hope to recruit for academia, most are almost the same age as those currently in academe and their average age is higher than the national average age of doctorates and doctoral graduates in the USA, at 40 and 46.2 years, respectively (Berlin & Sechrist 2002)
Summary
The nursing profession is challenged by market demands, compelling expectations of more efficient and better quality services, as well as escalating financial pressures (Ketefian et al 2005; Woodford & Nyquist 2005). The programmes are guided by the Higher Education Qualifications Framework, which legislates the classification, registration, publication and quality of higher education qualifications in conjunction with the South African Qualification Authority, the Higher Education Quality Council and the Council on Higher Education (CHE 2009) regulatory bodies These bodies provide Higher Education Institutions (HEI) with a broad indication of learning achievements or outcomes that need to be attained at doctoral level (Department of Education [DoE] 1997), but they do not prescribe the particulars of a doctoral programme. Even though all 16 SA nursing schools offer research-focused doctoral degrees, each differs significantly regarding title, mode of delivery, prerequisites, content, assessment standards and awarding of nursing doctorates. The seven major criteria identified in the QSCI investigation included: the nature of the mission; the quality of faculty; doctoral students; curriculum; programme administration; availability of institutional resources; and evaluation of the programme, with sub-criteria, standards and indicators to measure the quality of each specific criterion (Kim & Ketefian 2004; Kim et al 2006)
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