A qualitative exploration of how nurse lecturers determined curriculum content and teaching strategies, and how their knowledge of this was developed

The purpose of this study was to ascertain how nurse lecturers determined curricula content and delivery, and how their knowledge of this was developed. Twelve participants from an academic nursing department in an English university, were selected to be interviewed using semi-structured interviews. The methodology used to collect and analyse the data and subsequently to develop the theory, was Charmaz’s constructivist grounded theory methodology. Key findings showed that the majority of the participants had not received any training or preparation for developing curricula, leading to several challenges when attempting to write a module in the early and even later stages of their careers. Nearly all of the participants had sought assistance from senior colleagues, who were already overburdened with work and unable to assist them adequately. In addition, they developed their curriculum by relying on their past clinical experiences. However, all but one of the participants had found formalised teaching programmes to be ineffective, in enabling them to develop their knowledge of writing a curriculum. A formal mentoring system was not in place at the time of data collection, and many of the participants had spoken about the need for such a system in order to support inexperienced lecturing staff. There were some negative aspects highlighted which affected their decisions about which teaching strategies to utilise, where there was a lack of resources in classrooms allocated for teaching, which were too small to accommodate the rising number of students, and an inadequate number of lecturing staff to support them in delivering a module. Student evaluation was identified as being of paramount importance when determining module content, in order to encourage the student to learn effectively. A theory has been developed from the data, that is also in part supported by other studies here and abroad, and recommendations for future research have been made to ascertain if these issues are apparent in other HEI’s. Recommendations are for HEI’s to have a formal mentoring and peer mentoring programme in situ, for the support of all lecturers at any stage of their career. A faculty development programme needs to focus on curriculum development to assist staff on a consistent basis, so enabling their development in this specialised field. Resource issues are a problem for all senior management of Faculties and how this is managed is down to the individual department. An acceptance that there is a problem needs to be recognised and addressed as far as possible, using suitable approaches. With a large number of lecturers reaching retirement age, together with those leaving the profession due to being overburdened and suffering from stress, there is currently a huge shortfall in lecturing staff in United Kingdom (UK) universities. This is exacerbated by the increasing growth in student numbers, which in turn increases the pressure on provision. This is not only an issue for the UK but for other countries also, as will be shown later in this study.