A kaupapa Maori Nursing stream as a Choice For Maori Tauira (students). ANEC presentation

Within New Zealand nursing there is an awareness of need for relevant safe and accessible care for Maori, one approach has been to increase the number of registered nurses who identify as Maori. This goal has not been without its challenges. When it comes to the topic of Maori achievement in education most will readily agree that the research has focused on Maori underachievement. While this no doubt remains a reality for many Maori it is time to look at successful programmes and to ask why? This presentation will give an overview of a successful Maori education programme - Tihei Mauri Ora which is undertaken within the Centre for Health and Social Practice at Te Kuratini o Waikato (WINTEC). This programme recognises kaupapa Maori and begins to address the needs of a minority community who are partners in a bi-cultural context. Although academic success is still predominately an individual accomplishment, Tihei Mauri Ora’s success is grounded in not only the individual but the development of the wider community, and building the capacity in hauora (health) in each whanau (family). It is the living of the content of this programme, rather than just delivering it which may be enabling achievement challenges for maori students to be overcome. We will present the living of this programme, the small steps made for big gains, and the collaborative mahi (work) undertaken, from the perspective of the staff, students and whanau. Discussing what is different about our successful approach to the positive outcomes for maori Bachelor of Nursing students in the Tihei Mauri Ora stream

Addressing Obstacles to Success: Improving student completion, retention and achievement in science modules in applied health programmes, with particular reference to Maori

The overall aim of our research project is to remove “the problem” of achievement in science for students in the nursing and midwifery programmes. Past students have reported science as difficult and time-consuming, and their achievement results reflected this. Science was seen as a barrier to overall course success (Gibson et al, 2005). Other research (Zepke, et al, 2006; Otrel-Cass et al, 2006) has focused on problems of retention and completion in the tertiary sector, thus locating the student or the tertiary context as the problem. Our research rests on a different proposition, arguing that the curriculum is at the root of “the problem”. We are adjusting the science curriculum in an attempt to make the links between science and practice more explicit, so that students might see greater relevance for their learning, make richer links to prior experience and more explicitly link the science to their chosen careers

Tihei Mauri Ora: a retention programme supporting Maori nursing student achievement.

Within New Zealand nursing there is an awareness of a need for relevant safe and accessible care for Maori. One approach has been to increase the number of registered nurses who identify as Maori. Recruiting Maori into nursing has increased and statistics in universities and polytechnics indicate that the most popular qualification for Maori at bachelor level is Bachelor of Nursing (Earle, 2008). Strengthening education and achievement is crucial to Maori retention and success in nursing and has been identified as a priority by the District Health Boards of New Zealand and the New Zealand Nursing Council. Rather than focusing on Maori underachievement the Ministry of Education (2007) recommends educational institutions and teachers shift away from deficit to strengths based models, and consider alternative education and teaching approaches to raise Māori achievement in nursing education. Whilst progress has been made in recruiting Maori into the New Zealand health and disability workforce (Wilson, McKinney and RapataHaninng, 2011), retention and completion rates remain lower than non-Maori

Addressing Obstacles to Success: What science do midwives and nurses really need?

"Addressing Obstacles to Success" is a collaborative project between various schools at Wintec and the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) and funded by the Teaching Learning Research Initiative Fund. It investigates factors that impact on student completion, retention and achievement rates in the science modules in applied health programmes at Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) with specific attention to Maori students. The project builds on previous research which showed that students experienced science as difficult and time-consuming, and student results reflected this (Gibson, et al., 2005). The aims of the project are not only to gain an understanding of the epistemological and pedagogical issues, but also to find new ways to include the essential science, without making this an obstacle to overall module success. The research project is structured around a mixed method design and consists of two phases. Phase One (2006) of the research project gathered data from focus group interviews to determine the relevant science content for undergraduate nursing and midwifery programmes. The regionally based focus groups collected perspectives from midwifery and nursing clinical educators and recently registered midwives and nurses, about their work and the perceived science/practice links. Phase Two (2007) involves the development, piloting and evaluation of an intervention for science modules, using the prioritised content from Phase One. The aim being to enhance the contextualisation of science, to avoid content overload and help students make more meaningful theory/practice links. The long term aim is to improve completion rates in science modules through improved science literacy. This paper describes how key science aspects in nursing practice were identified (Phase One) and then translated into the planning and intervention of science teaching in the first year of the Bachelor of Nursing Programme (Phase Two)

Rethinking assessment for the science modules in the first year nursing programme: Final project report

This project evaluated an innovative assessment tool that was developed to provide evidence that students were developing science-informed competence for nursing. Measuring and assessing competence in nursing education is a current world-wide concern, with few solutions offered (Anderson, 2008; Cowan et al., 2005; Lauder et al., 2008; Pincombe et al., 2007). At Waikato Institute of Technology, the prescription of Nursing Council of New Zealand (NCNZ) nursing competencies into the science modules of the Bachelor of Nursing curriculum commenced in 2009. Examination of the alignment of pedagogy, curriculum and assessment revealed that existing methods of assessment did not effectively assess all aspects of competence. This research project investigated what tools could be used to assess evidence of the development of all aspects of science-informed competence in nursing education, and developed a new assessment tool. The tool was evaluated in terms of its construct, concurrent and consequential validity through a variety of data collection methods. Findings indicated that the new assessment tool enabled assessment of all aspects of competence, including the contribution of student attitudes, values and abilities. It was also effective in providing students with opportunities to make links between science learning and nursing practice. Questionnaire and focus group results indicated that most students had some understanding of the purpose of the assessment tool and understood the practical test as linking to a ‘nursing perspective’. However, the students’ overall perception of the assessment was negative. We concluded that this was influenced by three main variables; the length of the test, the readability and format of assessment items, and the perceived unfamiliarity of the assessment conditions (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007). As a result of these findings, recommendations for practice and further research are offered

Addressing obstacles to success: Increasing engagement with science

The overall aim of the research was to address the issue of science as a “problem” for students in undergraduate nursing and midwifery programmes at Waikato Intitute of Technology (Wintec). In previous Wintec research students reported science as being difficult and time-consuming, and their lower achievement results reflected the ‘problem’. The literature which supports the research draws from both science and nursing education. It explores practice-to-theory and theory-to-practice links, highlighting the largely tacit nature of these links (Chin et al, 2004). We wanted to make the links between science theory and clinical practice more explicit, in the hope that this would increase student understanding of and engagement with science. The research comprised two phases. Phase One (2006) sought to answer the question – “what aspects of science do newly graduated midwives and nurses really need to know in order to practise competently?” through: Exploring perspectives of science education in applied health programmes in a review of current literature Exploring what Science midwives and nurses actually used in practice through the collection of information through focus groups with midwifery and nurse educators, and new graduate (1) midwives and nurses in practice. Phase Two (2007) sought to answer the question – “how can science be taught more effectively to help students make more meaningful theory/practice links?” by: Designing, delivering and evaluating the effectiveness of a pilot intervention in the Science modules based on the ‘essential’ science knowledge and skills identified in Phase One, which matched aspects of the current curriculum. The Pilot interventions focused on implementing and evaluating three prioritised content areas: Cardio-vascular system, Renal system and Breastfeeding / Lactation. Different teaching strategies were implemented to provide enhanced contextualisation of the science components. These included content reduction, the inclusion of narrative stories, and simplified teaching resources. The interventions were evaluated through several data collection methods: Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGIDs), Tickets out of Class, focus group interviews and tutor peer reviews. There was minimal impact on student achievement outcomes, however, student satisfaction data was favourable. Overall analysis of the data suggested students had increased engagement with science. An unexpected outcome of the research was an emergent community of practice in our interdisciplinary research team which led to developments extending beyond the parameters of the project. Funded by the Teaching Learning Research Initiative Fund. 1. ‘New graduate’ for the purposes of this project is being used as an encompassing term to describe the working practices of recently graduated midwives and nurses working in hospitals, and midwives working as Lead Maternity Carers

Linking assessment to learning for authentic practice: Rethinking assessment for the science modules in a 1st year nursing programme

Science education research literature suggests that the decontextualised nature of much science learning can be an obstacle to many learners, especially when they cannot see a clear purpose for learning that is personally challenging. Drawing from theories of situated cognition, a 2006-2008 research project completed at Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), Hamilton NZ, aimed to contextualise science teaching for nursing. Including rich human biology narratives as teaching materials was one of the strategies used in the research. This project found that although student engagement with science increased, this did not translate into improved academic achievement. Greater engagement, it seems, is necessary but not sufficient to improve achievement, at least in terms of the traditional way in which this was assessed. This year, as a consequence of the continuing high failure rate (30%) for first year students, the research team embarked on a second research project. The aim is to explore ways of matching assessment with the innovative changes the team made to their pedagogy and curriculum. Around the same time, the Nursing Council of New Zealand prescribed competencies to be demonstrated by graduating nursing students. These competencies are generic across nursing learning contexts. The science team have to work out what they mean for their practice. Putting these two threads together, the current research is investigating the following four interlinked questions: 1. What does competence mean in the context of nursing education? 2. What do science-informed competencies look like for nursing education? 3. What types of evidence will show that students are strengthening a selected aspect of science-informed competency? 4. What are the ways that this evidence could be gathered? The research seminar will present the preliminary findings from our experimentation with assessment of science informed competencies for first year nursing science, and the types of evidence that could demonstrate the identified links between science learning and nursing practice. We would like to hear other people’s views of the interpretation of competency we are exploring and to share ideas about innovative assessment tools designed to assess whether students have made links between their pre-service science learning and an area of professional practice

Addressing obstacles to success: Improving student completion, retention and achievement in applied health programmes

Science education research literature suggests that the decontextualised nature of much science learning can be an obstacle to many learners. Science ideas are often expressed in formal, abstract logico-scientific modes of communication, whereas people mostly use more informal and storied narrative modes of communication (Bruner, 1986). The research project aimed to contextualise the science teaching modules by using rich narratives of practice as teaching materials. We anticipated that their effective use would require a change from traditional teaching. The key findings from the two year research project demonstrate that student engagement with science increased, although this wasn’t reflected in end of year summative results. Other issues and challenges concerned content reduction, designing effective narratives, scalability and sustainability. The research project was a model of successful collaboration leading to enhanced capability and capacity of the research team members. This presentation will draw together key issues and insights from the project to discuss the successful lessons learned and the way forward for teaching of science in applied health programmes at Wintec