Scholarship In Nursing Education
Initiation of Nursing Scholarship
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) defines nursing scholarship as, “those activities that systematically advance the teaching, research, and practice of nursing through rigorous inquiry that:
(a) is significant to the profession
(b) is creative
(c) can be documented
(d) can be replicated or elaborated
(e) can be peer-reviewed through various methods” (AACN, 1999b, p. 1).
Necessity of Nursing Scholarships
Scholarship is the necessary ingredient for expanding the field of nursing education and improving nursing practice (AACN, 2006). In order for nursing to meet the current challenges of health care delivery, scholarship in nursing must be a salient part of all nursing practice. Boyer's (1990) model of scholarship has been frequently cited in the literature as a guide for understanding scholarship in nursing. This model includes four main aspects of scholarship: discover the generation of new knowledge; teaching teachers and students cross the bridge to understand and achieve a better learning environment, application the use of knowledge for development and change; and integration inter professional collaboration leading to improved understanding of responsibilities and roles.
Furthermore, the AACN (1999b) position is that scholar-ship in nursing does not exist unless the knowledge is made public for further testing and debate.Nurse educators are responsible for deriving a variety of creative teaching learning activities to facilitate the principle of scholarship throughout all levels of nursing curricula and health care systems: Scholarship within nursing education must focus on classroom research, evidence-based practice (EBP), and providing the structure that nurses need to give the most efficient instruction to patients (Robert & Pape, 2011).
Nursing Scholarship a Historical View
Scholarship in nursing education became known in the early 1960s after Bixler and Bixler (1959) publicly questioned the validity of nursing as a true profession. Their major concern was the lack of scientific merit to nursing traditions and practices. Nursing scholars of that era took on the challenge of developing the science of nursing through establishing nursing theory that could direct scientific research specifically to nursing practices (Meleis, 1987). In the beginning, scholarship in nursing focused on formulating theories that provided new knowledge to guide and explain the science of nursing.
Scholarship activity was generally kept within academia, and was viewed as a path to career advancement with emphasis on research and publication. Nursing scholarship within the clinical workplace was given much less prominence and importance.The changes in world health care and delivery have influenced nursing leaders to re-conceptualize the notion of scholarship in nursing. The report from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching introduced a new model of scholarship (Boyer, 1990), which included the integration, application, teaching, and discovery of knowledge.
Building on this model, the AACN's (1999b) position paper outlined guidelines for nursing education to meet the challenges of health care reform and delivery of care. More emphasis was placed on scholarship in nursing education that promoted the discovery of new knowledge through clinical research and EBP (AACN. 1999a, 2006). Different forms of scholarship have become the acceptable way of advancing nursing knowledge and growing the profession. Today, scholarship in nursing includes the discovery, integration, application, and teaching of new knowledge within both research focused academic settings and non research focused clinical settings.
In keeping with this trend, nursing education programs have established the doctor. of nursing practice (DNP) with the aim of preparing nurses to be leaders in EBP Scholarship is focused on the translation of nursing research into practice and the integration of new knowledge to improve clinical decision making (Terry, 2012) The nursing profession has progressed through not only the discovery of new knowledge in the discipline but also the integration and application of this knowledge through EBP (AACN, 2006).
Effects of Social and Political Factors
Social and political influences have created significant challenges for the nursing profession in this decade and will continue to do so in the future. Nursing scholarship will continue to grow in importance as EBP becomes more widely established, and the expectation for better patient outcomes becomes the norm (Brown, 2014). Nursing education must prepare nurses to become involved in nursing scholarship activities to create their own EBP and collaborate with other professions to improve patient care.
Educators must be committed to teaching students about the importance of nursing scholarship in practice in order to influence health care decisions and advance the profession. Students must understand that practice includes identifying clinical problems, using technology to retrieve evidence, reading and analyzing research, weighing evidence, and implementing change (Schmidt & Brown, 2012). Nurse scholars must continue to develop midrange and practice theories that are more useful in clinical settings and lead practice nurses in basing their patient care on evidence.
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