Theory Practice Gaps in Nursing Education: A Qualitative Perspective

Abstract

Abstract: The last three decades have focused on moving nursing education from hospitals toward universities. The theoretical part has started to gain more popularity in nursing education. The literature shows that there is a clear gap between what is taught in classroom and what student nurses experience in clinical area. This study aimed to identify reasons for this gap and present suggestions to overcome it. An exploratory qualitative approach was adopted. Individual face-to-face semi-structured interviews with thirty students were done. The findings shed light on one main theme the reasons for theory-practice Many of students explained that lack of qualifications of clinical instructors formed a key stone in increasing gap between theory and practice. Lack of communication between Theory and Practice teachers was viewed as another reason for this gap. The students showed complexity of clinical learning environment in comparison with theory controlled environment. Poor communication between clinical instructors and lack of support in clinical training was viewed crucial and was expected to increase feelings of frustration and dissatisfaction among nursing students. In conclusion, qualitative design used in this study provided deep and rich data about theory-practice gaps in nursing education in Jordan. The results of this study could be useful for undergraduate students, nursing schools, nursing teachers and stakeholders in Jordan.Keywords: Theory-Practice Gap, Nursing, EducationIntroductionThe last three decades focused on moving nursing education from hospitals to universities. There is point of view shows that nursing is a practice discipline and students' clinical training is considered to be core of nursing education (Jonsen et al., 2013; Parker and Carlisle, 1996). It was suggested that theory as being complementary to practice and they expect more focus on teaching in clinical setting (Landers, 2000). This view was originated from ability of clinical education to provide students with real life events that enable them to develop, apply and evaluate their own understanding of concepts being studied (Ranse and Grealish, 2007). However, other authors did not ignore importance of theory in nursing education (Stockhausen, 2005). They believed that theory information provides students with opportunity to build a range of powerful exemples that gained from experience.The theoretical part is started to gain more popularity in nursing education. Several programs and sub-specialists are newly developed and this reduced concentration on clinical education. Nursing teachers also started to focus on research and theory more than clinical skills. Nolan (1998) indicated that existing curriculum content and clinical experiences were failing to meet learners' needs. Jeffreys (2007) explained that this failure is resulted from making clinical education secondary to priorities of services.The literature showed that there is a clear gap between what is taught in classroom and what student nurses experience in clinical area (Brasell-Brian and Vallance, 2002; Landers, 2000; McKenna and Wellard, 2004). This gap was viewed as a normal phenomenon by some authors. For example, (Steele, 1991) explained that what is taught in classroom can never truly resemble real event and that a full comprehension of nursing principles does not ensure their application to practice. In same vein, (McCaugherty, 1991) pointed out that textbooks cannot possibly give full picture of a patient's clinical status. This suggests that theory-practice gap is difficult to be avoided. However, there is a limit for this gap should not be exceeded. The above discussion shows difficulty of avoiding theory-practice gap in nursing education. The literature review highlighted several reasons for presence of this gap. …