Focus Group Initiative: Increase Student Participation in Program Planning and Evaluation

The purpose of this paper is to gain a better insight into nursing student participation in governance activities of St. Catherine University Associate Degree Nursing Program. The Associate Degree Nursing Program (ADNP) has lacked student input into governance activities, and is missing a process to engage student input. Qualitative research was conducted to ascertain ways to improve student participation in program governance activities. The author completed two pilot focus groups with one cohort of ADNP students to test the process and determine feasibility throughout the program during fall term of 2010. The author took the results from that process to improve the method of data collection. Three focus groups were completed during fall term of 2010 and five during winter term 2011. There was at least one focus group for each cohort of students in the ADNP. Focus groups allowed the researcher to gain rich data about student perceptions of the course of study, providing a venue for participation in program planning and evaluation. The process also afforded the opportunity to ask students if they would participate in governance activities and if there were barriers to involvement that faculty might address. When evaluating the focus group data, the author analyzed both themes and outlier comments. The analysis mainly considered the student group comments as a whole, but occasionally data demanded immediate action for individual student needs

Evaluation of Student Competence in Simulation Following a Prebriefing Activity: A Pilot Study

Background: Simulation-based learning (SBL) shows promise to potentially improve clinical competence in nursing education. The efficacy of evidence-based prebriefing activities and valid and reliable systems to evaluate those strategies is a gap in the literature. Preliminary evidence shows that prebriefing can improve participant outcomes. The goal of this pilot study was to compare the outcome of clinical competence for prelicensure nursing students based on assignment to one of the following prebriefing activities: standard, careplan, or concept mapping. Methods: This is a quasi-experimental double-blind, posttest only, comparison-group design, pilot study. The participants were from an associate degree professional nursing program. Out of a potential 30 students, 28 agreed to participate. The data collection occurred during two laboratory sessions of their medical-surgical course. The students were exposed to an assigned prebriefing activity and then engaged in a simulation scenario. Two faculty simulation evaluators (FSEs) watched the videoed performance and evaluated the students’ clinical competence using the Creighton Competency Evaluation Instrument (C-CEI). Demographic data were used to analyze the homogeneity of the groups and to determine if other factors affected clinical competence. An ANOVA was used to answer the research questions. Results: Based on the analysis, gender, age, course grade, race and ethnicity, the groups were similar. Interrater reliability of the C-CEI overall (Kappa=0.096 with p=0.02) and communication (Kappa=0.349 with p=0.01) scores between the FSEs were significantly different. Based on their Cronbach’s alpha score (0.74) FSE Two’s ratings were used for analysis. There were no significant changes in C-CEI scores based on the students’ assigned prebriefing activity. There were significant differences between participant scores (communication 4.3(26), p = \u3c0.001; Clinical Judgement 2.7(26), p = 0.011; Overall 2.8(26), p = 0.01) based on their scenario. Conclusions: Issues with the FSFs and FSEs revealed ways to improved future simulation-based research. Ensuring scenario complexity is equivalent assures comparable participant performance. Measures to enhance FSE interrater reliability must be implemented. Limitations: The sample size was inadequate to determine statistically significant data. A lack of randomization of assignment to groups is also a limitation. An FSF provided additional cueing which could have affected some student’s C-CEI scores

Database of nitrification and nitrifiers in the global ocean

As a key biogeochemical pathway in the marine nitrogen cycle, nitrification (ammonia oxidation and nitrite oxidation) converts the most reduced form of nitrogen – ammonium–ammonia (NH4+–NH3) – into the oxidized species nitrite (NO2-) and nitrate (NO3-). In the ocean, these processes are mainly performed by ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB) and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB). By transforming nitrogen speciation and providing substrates for nitrogen removal, nitrification affects microbial community structure; marine productivity (including chemoautotrophic carbon fixation); and the production of a powerful greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide (N2O). Nitrification is hypothesized to be regulated by temperature, oxygen, light, substrate concentration, substrate flux, pH and other environmental factors. Although the number of field observations from various oceanic regions has increased considerably over the last few decades, a global synthesis is lacking, and understanding how environmental factors control nitrification remains elusive. Therefore, we have compiled a database of nitrification rates and nitrifier abundance in the global ocean from published literature and unpublished datasets. This database includes 2393 and 1006 measurements of ammonia oxidation and nitrite oxidation rates and 2242 and 631 quantifications of ammonia oxidizers and nitrite oxidizers, respectively. This community effort confirms and enhances our understanding of the spatial distribution of nitrification and nitrifiers and their corresponding drivers such as the important role of substrate concentration in controlling nitrification rates and nitrifier abundance. Some conundrums are also revealed, including the inconsistent observations of light limitation and high rates of nitrite oxidation reported from anoxic waters. This database can be used to constrain the distribution of marine nitrification, to evaluate and improve biogeochemical models of nitrification, and to quantify the impact of nitrification on ecosystem functions like marine productivity and N2O production. This database additionally sets a baseline for comparison with future observations and guides future exploration (e.g., measurements in the poorly sampled regions such as the Indian Ocean and method comparison and/or standardization). The database is publicly available at the Zenodo repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8355912 (Tang et al., 2023).</p

Concept Maps in Nursing Education: A Historical Literature Review and Research Directions

Background: Although concept mapping was created in the early 1980s, research in nursing education first appeared in 1992. This literature review analyzes the impact of concept mapping in nursing education.Method: A total of 221 articles, books, and book chapters were reviewed on the topic of concept mapping in nursing education.Results: Results indicate that concept-mapping research progressed from the emergence state, to an expansion and adaptation stage, to an established stage.Conclusion: Nursing education could benefit from further research on applying concept map scoring formulas, using concept maps with simulation, developing knowledge models, and creating concept map-centered learning environments