University-based Education Research Articles

Preceptorship revisited

Before the advent of university-based dental education, preceptorship training was the only way one could learn to be a dentist. Even after dental schools became firmly entrenched in the university system, preceptorships were accepted for specialty training. In the 1960s, the American Association of Orthodontists revived the tradition to meet a growing demand for orthodontic specialists. By the time that program concluded a decade later, over 200 specialists had completed their studies; many preceptees went into clinical practice near or with their mentors. The author of this historical review is a practicing orthodontist certified by the American Board of Orthodontics, a faculty member of a university orthodontic department, and a 1961 graduate of the supervised preceptorship program.

The Rhetoric and Reality of Structured Tourism Work Experiences: A Social Representational Analysis

This paper reports on a study which explored the social representations of structured work experience (SWE) placements in university-based tourism education held by students, academic work placement coordinators, and industry professionals, and portrayed in public presentations of university tourism curricula. Social representations can be defined as everyday or lay theories about social phenomena. The paper explores the nature of the every day theories held by these different groups of actors. In particular, the analysis focused on perceptions of why structured work experiences are a necessary component of tourism education and the perceived benefits that such educational activities can provide. The analysis is based on a series of semi-structured interviews with academic coordinators, a semi-structured survey of industry professionals or placement hosts, a survey of students in one Australian tourism management programme and a content analysis of the public information about structured work experiences available on the websites of 25 universities from North America, the United Kingdom and Australia. Two representations were identified—one based on emphasizing skill building and one on reducing risk for employers and students. The data shows that the skill building representation exists only partially amongst academics and not at all amongst the other actors and this lack of specificity, and the fact that it is only held by academics, contributes to the range of problems that have been associated with SWEs. The second representation about risk is the one that closely connects students and employers and offers the best opportunities for reducing the operational problems of SWEs.

The Role of the Paramedic Practitioner in the Uk

The ‘Paramedic Practitioner’ role has developed against a background of change in primary care service provision, apparently resulting in an increasing utilisation of emergency ambulance services. This presents opportunities to extend the scope of practice of paramedics and other health professionals in the diagnosis and management of patients with minor illnesses and injuries. Such patients commonly present via calls to traditional emergency numbers (999) or are referred from other unscheduled care agencies. Paramedic practitioners can reduce the number of patients inappropriately transported to hospital by approximately half, thus meeting an NHS aim of ‘treating the right patients in the right place at the right time’. Other opportunities exist in the form of extended roles in critical care and the management of the chronically ill in the community. Currently, a number of pilot programmes exist but vary considerably with respect to type and duration of training, permitted scope of practice, and even the job title of these new practitioners. To be successful, these major changes in the role of ambulance professionals will require the paramedic profession to take leadership through its own professional body (the British Paramedic Association (BPA) in the establishment of defined standards of practice. A shift from vocational training to university-based education will be necessary to meet the intellectual demands of the autonomous management of these patient populations. Uniformity of job title and legal restrictions on its use are also required. These new opportunities for practice will offer a structured clinical career for ambulance professionals for the first time. The BPA has proposed that Emergency Medical Technicians will have a university Certificate; paramedics a university Diploma; paramedic practitioners an Honours Degree; and advanced paramedic practitioners a Masters Degree. Consultant paramedics holding PhDs will support their peers in furthering professional practice. The ambulance profession is coming of age…

The ‘Manchester scheme’: a study of the Diploma in Community Nursing, the first pre‐registration nursing programme in a British university

The Diploma in Community Nursing at the University of Manchester began in 1959, after a long period of planning and negotiation. It was the earliest pre-registration nursing education programme in a British university. The paper reports on a historical study which examined its foundation and development. The history of the 'Manchester Scheme', as it came to be known, is placed into the context of wider reforms and modifications in British nursing education. The methods used for the study were a broad-based literature review, examination of material from the 1950s to the present day, five oral history interviews with some of those who were influential in developing the diploma, and the interpretation of relevant documentary source materials. The Diploma in Community Nursing at the University of Manchester was important and innovative in its time, combining as it did nurse and health visitor training with a university-based education. The paper traces the struggle to establish the course, which was largely due to the efforts of one charismatic individual, Fraser Brockington, Professor of Social and Preventive Medicine. It then goes on to examine the reforms and modifications the programme underwent from 1959 to 1969, as it was developed into the prototype for the 'Bachelor of Nursing Degree'.

University-Community Relationships in the Development of a Geriatric Interdisciplinary Team Training Certificate

In this article, the authors take a systematic look at transaction costs and barriers to a university-community partnership during the design and implementation of a Geriatric Interdisciplinary Team Training Certificate. The development of the authors’ university-community partnership was fueled by a funding source that enabled the Virginia Geriatric Education Center to work with three large health care systems. The purpose of the grant was to develop a geriatric interdisciplinary team curriculum for community-based health care professionals. The interdisciplinary planning committee, consisting of both university-based educators and community-based practitioners, designed a 50-hour curriculum that covered diverse clinical topics with an interactive format. In the process, the authors identified within-site, across-site, and between-partner barriers that need to be addressed for successful implementation.

Is a Web Survey as Effective as a Mail Survey? A Field Experiment Among Computer Users

With the exponential increase in Web access, program evaluators need to understand the methodological benefits and barriers of using the Web to collect survey data from program participants. In this experimental study, the authors examined whether a Web survey can be as effective as the more established mail survey on three measures of survey effectiveness: response rate, question completion rate, and the lack of evaluative bias. Community- and university-based educators ( n = 274) attending a 2-day program were randomly assigned to receive a Web or mail survey evaluating the program. Among those participants successfully solicited by e-mail, Web survey participants were more likely to respond (95%) than mail survey participants (79%). Web survey participants completed similarly high numbers of quantitative questions as mail survey participants, provided longer and more substantive responses to qualitative questions, and did not demonstrate evidence of evaluative bias. These results suggest that program evaluators could expand their use of Web surveys among computer users.

Perceived Effectiveness of Adult Education as a Contributor to National Development in Southern Africa Today

This qualitative interpretivist study analyses the perceptions of a stratified and purposive sample of university-based adult educators with a view to understanding how they perceive the effectiveness of adult education as a contributor to national development in southern Africa at the beginning of the 21st century. These perceptions of university-based adult educators are investigated against the background of the current global trend to project adult education as a component of the configuration of lifelong learning. Among the findings are that university-based adult educators in southern Africa differ to some extent as to whether or not the discipline has contributed significantly to southern African national development, and that the need for an enabling environment for the utilisation of adult education is as yet unappreciated.

Reforming Dental Health Professions Education: A White Paper

The oral health education system is in need of major reform! This is especially apparent in university-based education for the health professions. So-called preclinical as well as clinical education simply has not kept pace with or been responsive enough to shifting patient demographics and patient/population desires and expectations, changing health system expectations, evolving interdisciplinary expertise and practice requirements, new scientific discoveries and scientific information, focus on quality improvement, and/or integration of emerging technologies. Moreover, university-based "dental education" is the most costly professional degree education within the entire university portfolio, and dental student accumulated debt is increasing each year well beyond national inflation estimates. Today, we have an enormous opportunity to explore major reforms in health professional education. Through the Santa Fe "process" of open and candid engagements and discussions (see www.santafegroup.org), we advance an argument as well as a national strategy that can enable major reforms in the oral health education system. We further suggest that major revisions can result in an outcome-based education system that prepares oral health professionals to meet both the needs of patients/families/communities and the requirements of a changing health system.

Survey of Intensive Care Nurses’ Knowledge Relating to the Pulmonary Artery Catheter

In 2003 there was an increase in the use of pulmonary artery catheters in Australia from 12,000 to 16,000 units in intensive care and peri-operative care. This survey of intensive care nurses in five intensive care units in Queensland addressed knowledge of use, safety and complications of the pulmonary artery catheter, using a previously validated 31 question multiple choice survey. One hundred and thirty-nine questionnaires were completed, a response rate of 46%. The mean score was 13.3, standard deviation +/-4.2 out of a total of 31 (42.8% correct). The range was 4 to 25. Scores were significantly higher in those participants with more ICU experience, higher nursing grade, a higher self-assessed level of knowledge and greater frequency of PAC supervision. There was no significant correlation between total score and hospital- or university-based education, or total score and public or private hospital participants. Fifty-one per cent were unable to correctly identify the significant pressure change as the catheter is advanced from the right ventricle to the pulmonary artery.

Greeting statement

It is my great pleasure to convey sincere and cordial greetings to nursing professionals and nursing scientists around the world and to members of the Japan Academy of Nursing Science and their friends and colleagues on the occasion of the publication of the first issue the Japan Journal of Nursing Science (JJNS), the English-language journal of the Japan Academy of Nursing Science (JANS). The August 2004 inaugural issue of the Japan Journal of Nursing Science, the first-ever English-language journal published by a nursing academy in Japan, is a milestone in the development of nursing in Japan. The Japan Academy of Nursing Science, the oldest academic nursing organization in Japan, was established in 1981 by the allied nursing departments from six universities comprising the Japan Association of Nursing Programs in Universities (JANPU). Now, JANS is a registered member of the Science Council of Japan, the most prestigious and respected organization of academic organizations in Japan. And, membership is over 4200, reflecting the incredible growth in university-based education for nursing, the development of Masters and Doctoral programs throughout Japan, and the growth in research and international communication about nursing scholarship by nurses and others in Japan and around the world. Publication of the English-language journal, one of the internationally focused goals of JANS, has been long awaited. This achievement is the result of enormous time and effort of all the JANS members. However, my special thanks go to Professor William L. Holzemer (University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA) who readily took on the task of Editor-in-Chief and who has always been a reliable and supportive consultant to Japanese nursing professionals, and a member of JANS since 1991. Commitment by the international publisher, Blackwell Publishing Asia, to the project gives us the advantage of its expertise and reach. Moreover, great interest in publishing in the Journal and hard work by associate editors and reviewers made it possible for us to present scholarly manuscripts in this epoch-making first issue of JJNS. I strongly believe that our Journal will play an important role in contributing to the development and exchange of academic nursing knowledge by publishing current scholarship from Japan and around the world. The goal of JANS is to create and organize nursing academic resources, to enhance dissemination of nursing knowledge, to encourage exchange of nursing scholarship and thereby to promote academic development of nursing science for the benefit of the health and welfare of people. The Journal represents our newest English-language venture; in 1992, we sponsored our first international nursing research conference with English as the language of the conference. This year, JANS presents its fifth International Nursing Research Conference. The conference will be held in Fukushima, Japan from Sunday 29 August to Tuesday 31 August 2004, with the main theme being ‘Nursing Phenomena and Research Designs – Search for New Research Methodology.’ Your presentations and participation at the conference will be warmly welcomed. During this year, my last year as Chair of the Board of JANS, I am determined to further strengthen the fundamental resources of our Academy as well as to support the publication of JJNS. This commitment, along with the resilience and support of the JANS members and their internationally active friends, places our Academy at the doorstep of a bright future. Once again, I would like to express appreciation for the constant assistance from each and every member of JANS and its colleagues around the world.

The progress of nurse prescribing in the United Kingdom

Nurse prescribing in England has made great strides in recent years. Building on the success of district nurse and health visitor prescribing – more than 23000 community nurses are now qualified to prescribe from the Nurse Prescribers’ Formulary for district nurses and health visitors – we implemented the extension to nurse prescribing from April 2002. This enabled nurses in secondary care, and midwives, to prescribe for the first time. The Nurse Prescribers’ Extended Formulary (NPEF), from which they can prescribe, includes all Pharmacy and General Sales List medicines that are prescribable by GPs, and a list of around 140 Prescription–only Medicines to treat conditions in four clinical areas: minor injuries, minor illness, health promotion and palliative care. Training to prescribe from the NPEF involves 25days of university-based education and 12days learning in practice, with the support of a medical prescriber. Around 800 nurses and midwives have already trained to prescribe from the NPEF. They include practice nurses, nurse practitioners and specialist nurses from acute hospitals, as well as nurses from emergency departments and Walk-in Centres.

Program Planning for a Community Pharmacy Residency Support Service Using the Nominal Group Technique

To define programmatic objectives and initial operational priorities for CommuniRes, a university-based education and support service designed to help community pharmacists successfully implement and sustain community pharmacy residency programs (CPRPs). Advisory committee of nationally recognized experts in CPRPs in a small-group planning session. CPRPs are postgraduate clinical training experiences conducted in chain and independent community pharmacies. The nominal group technique (NGT), a structured approach to group planning and decision making, was used to identify and prioritize the needs of CPRPs. Results of the NGT exercise were used as input to a brainstorming session that defined specific CommuniRes services and resources that must be developed to meet high priority needs of CPRPs. Group consensus on the priority needs of CPRPs was determined through rank order voting. The advisory committee identified 20 separate CPRP needs that it believed must be met to ensure that CPRPs will be successful and sustainable. Group voting resulted in the selection of six needs that were considered to be consensus priorities for services and resources provided through CommuniRes: image parity for CPRPs; CPRP marketing materials; attractive postresidency employment opportunities; well-defined goals, objectives, and residency job descriptions; return on investment and sources of ongoing funding for the residency; and opportunities and mechanisms for communicating/networking with other residents and preceptors. The needs-based programmatic priorities defined by the advisory committee are now being implemented through a tripartite program consisting of live training seminars for CPRP preceptors and directors, an Internet site (www.communires.com), and a host of continuing support services available to affiliated CPRP sites. Future programmatic planning will increasingly involve CPRP preceptors, directors, and former residents to determine the ongoing needs of CPRPs.

HRD university education: an international research agenda

Based on the observation that the systematic study of university-based HRD education - especially in an international comparative approach - is an important but under-explored area of scholarship, this article reports on the results of a need-sensing process among a panel of twenty-one senior HRD administrators and scholars in the United States and Great Britain. The resulting research agenda identified knowledge gaps and research needs in three broad areas: subject matter of HRD education; institutional characteristics, arrangements, and linkages; and outcomes and effectiveness of HRD education. Several categories were identified in each of the three areas and examples described. The implications of this study for research and theory building in international and comparative HRD are discussed.

Losing the quality battle in Australian education for librarianship

The author asserts that something is wrong with university-based education for librarianship in Australia. Librarianship does not have a clear disciplinary identity in universities. The lack of differentiation between the roles of technicians and professionals clouds the issue. For these and other reasons, education for librarianship in Australia is suffering. Comparisons are made with the United States and Canada. Some suggestions for improving the quality of university-based education for librarianship, based on increased cooperation among departments of information studies, are made.

Nursing Graduate Medical Education: Misdirected Funding

The author traces the history of Graduate Medical Education (GME) since its inception as part of the 1965 Medicare law. In structuring the GME payment, congress directed nursing support to provider-operated diploma schools where 80% of the nation’s nursing students were enrolled. Today, community college, senior college, and university programs enroll 82% of the nation’s nursing students. Because college- and university-based nursing education were only beginning to emerge in 1965, congress did not consider funding to support clinical training in graduate nursing programs. Currently, the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee is mandated to studying restructuring the 35-year-old GME payment, and must specifically address nursing education. Nursing organizations, particularly, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), continue to lobby congress to redirect GME funding to support graduate nursing education. The author, on the staff of AACN, discusses current strategies and concerns dealing with the GME issue.

Vocational qualifications: an opportunity for professional social work education

Because vocational qualifications (VQs) and academic awards constitute separate systems in the UK, they have been apt to trade criticisms or, at best, ignore each other rather than build links between the two types of qualification. Criticisms of VQs focus on their alleged failure to appreciate the importance of knowledge and transferable skills. Criticisms of academic awards highlight their alleged failure to develop competences for work. Yet these criticisms ignore the potential benefit of increased student access to qualifications by linking the two systems. The academic credits given to assessed work-based learning on Diploma in Social Work placements suggest a possible link with VQs for British social work education. The UK professional qualification for social work should remain within higher education, but university social work departments could locate the fast-developing higher-level VQs and higher-level full-time general vocational qualifications (GNVQS) within the structures of combined professional and academic awards such as the DipSW. Universities' expertise in curriculum development, quality assurance, and assessment processes could contribute to the development of higher-level VQs. This might benefit university-based social work education in the UK by improving access for qualifications and thus promoting anti-oppressive educational practice.

DIVISION 40 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS Mediocrity is No Standard: Searching for Self-Respect in Clinical Neuropsychology

While medicine moved from a training based in proprietary schools to university-based education and board specialty examinations during the early part of this century, psychology has seemed to move in the opposite direction during the past 20 years. Clinical Neuropsychology, as a specialty, has established training and practice guidelines, and more recently, produced an integrated model of education and training, not unlike the models developed by medicine and its specialties. Nevertheless, there are pressures within the field of Psychology in general, and Clinical Neuropsychology in particular, to abrogate standards and weaken credentials. These pressures are seen as stemming from prioritizing the interests of the practitioner over the needs of the patient and the profession. The thesis is presented that upholding standards leads to the benefit of the patient and the long-term health of the profession.

'It comes together at the end': the impact of a one-year subject in Nursing Inquiry on philosophies of nursing.

This paper reframes an interpretive study as critical inquiry as the researchers interrogate their roles and authority in the 'reading' of what is valued as reflective. Working from data collected in written philosophies and interviews within the context of a one-year subject aimed at developing reflective practice and an appreciation of ways of knowing, this paper examines the change in philosophies of nursing perceived by three university-based educators and their students. The study reveals a growing appreciation of the complexity of nursing but a limited consideration of the dialectic of critical theorising and everyday engagement necessary to critical reflection and reconstruction of action. More importantly, the process of research collaboration raises questions of the soul-searching necessary for university educators to act against the institutionalised political context that determines what is seen to be of value in student learning.

Using an Education Server Software System to Deliver Special Education Coursework via the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (Web) has considerable potential for delivering distance education programs. A new genre of computer software programs is being developed to facilitate the management of instruction and communication among students and instructors who are involved with the delivery of Web-based instruction (WBI). One such program is the TopClass educational server software system. This investigation was designed to examine the feasibility of using TopClass to deliver University-based special education coursework via the Web. Procedures required to set up an education Web server were examined and a pilot study was performed to explore factors associated with the development and delivery of instructional content via TopClass. Student reactions to instruction delivered in the pilot test were positive. There also were indicators that learning occurred as a result of using the TopClass system. Issues related to the use of WBI were identified and questions for additional research were proposed.

Why the university-based medical school should survive: a historical perspective.

Universities and medical education have been allied since the Middle Ages. In the United States, proprietary medical schools began to unite with universities at the turn of the century. At the end of the century, this traditional alliance is being questioned, even threatened, by marketplace demands, and medical schools and their universities continue to deal with internal struggles regarding teaching and research goals, and funding. In this paper, the author defines and discusses the origins of university-medical school tensions, provides a brief review of the history of university-based medical education in the United States, and describes some of the advantages and disadvantages of the alliance. Finally, he makes a case for why medical education must continue to be grounded in universities.