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      Scholarship in nursing: Degree-prepared nurses versus diploma-prepared nurses

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          Abstract

          BACKGROUND: The nursing profession needs nurses with a higher level of education and not merely more nurses to enhance patient outcomes. To improve quality patient care the nursing discipline needs to be advanced through theory development and knowledge generation, thus graduate nurses. Nursing scholarship cannot be limited to nurse academics, but is the responsibility of every nurse. Although the world is looking towards combating the decline in nursing numbers with better educated nurses, South Africa is planning to address the problem with more lower qualified nurses. AIM: The aim of this study being reported here was to establish whether degree-prepared nurses in South-Africa partake more often in scholarly activities than diploma-prepared nurses. METHOD: A cross-sectional descriptive design was used. The population was all professional nurses registered with the South African Nursing Council who obtained either a four year degree or four year diploma in nursing. Data were gathered from 479 respondents, using a self-administrative questionnaire. RESULTS: Three times more nursing educators (n = 19) achieved a degree as first qualification than their colleagues (n = 6) who achieved a diploma as first qualification. All but one (n = 18) nursing educators who obtained a degree as first qualification are educators in the private sector that include both universities as well as nursing colleges of private hospital groups. Data further revealed that most nurse educators and those in managerial positions were degree prepared. More degree prepared nurses than diploma prepared nurses were actively involved in scholarly activities such as research (30,5% compared to 25,5%) and implementing best practice guidelines (62,2% compared to 55,9%). CONCLUSION: The global nursing crisis, nor the nursing profession, will benefit by only training more nurses. The profession and the health care sector need more degree prepared nurses to improve scholarship in nursing.

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          Boyer's expanded definitions of scholarship, the standards for assessing scholarship, and the elusiveness of the scholarship of teaching.

          Debate about faculty roles and rewards in higher education during the past decade has been fueled by the work of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, principally Scholarship Reconsidered and Scholarship Assessed. The author summarizes those publications and reviews the more recent work of Lee Shulman on the scholarship of teaching. In 1990, Ernest Boyer proposed that higher education move beyond the tired old "teaching versus research" debate and that the familiar and honorable term "scholarship" be given a broader meaning. Specifically, scholarship should have four separate yet overlapping meanings: the scholarship of discovery, the scholarship of integration, the scholarship of application, and the scholarship of teaching. This expanded definition was well received, but from the beginning, assessment of quality was a stumbling block. Clearly, Boyer's concepts would be useful only if scholars could be assured that excellence in scholarly work would be maintained. Scholars at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching addressed this issue by surveying journal editors, scholarly press directors, and granting agencies to learn their definitions of excellence in scholarship. From the findings of these surveys, six standards of excellence in scholarship were derived: Scholars whose work is published or rewarded must have clear goals, be adequately prepared, use appropriate methods, achieve outstanding results, communicate effectively, and then reflectively critique their work. The scholarship of teaching remains elusive, however. The work of Lee Shulman and others has helped clarify the issues. The definition of this form of scholarship continues to be debated at colleges and universities across the nation.
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            Teaching for quality learning at university

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              Teaching for Quality Learning at University

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ND
                Role: ND
                Role: ND
                Journal
                hsa
                Health SA Gesondheid (Online)
                Health SA Gesondheid (Online)
                Elsevier (Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa )
                1025-9848
                2071-9736
                2016
                : 21
                : 1
                : 422-430
                Affiliations
                [03] Bloemfontein orgnameUniversity of the Free State orgdiv1School of Nursing South Africa
                [01] Pretoria orgnameUniversity of South Africa orgdiv1Department of Health Studies South Africa
                [02] Bloemfontein orgnameUniversity of the Free State orgdiv1School of Nursing South Africa
                Article
                S2071-97362016000100046
                10.1016/j.hsag.2016.08.002
                17429501
                602df3d0-e28a-42f3-bdcb-3bed61ad6f67

                This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

                History
                : 22 July 2015
                : 12 August 2016
                Page count
                Figures: 0, Tables: 0, Equations: 0, References: 26, Pages: 9
                Product

                SciELO South Africa


                Degree nurses,Diploma nurses,Knowledge generation,Scholarship,Scholarly activities

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