ABSTRACT
Changing Teacher Education - A Competencies Benchmarking of Nurse Teachers
This paper is based on a book which focuses a research about the paradigm change in
higher education and the emergence of new competencies for nurse teachers, resulting
from the numerous changes that occur in higher education in Portugal, due to its
inclusion in the European area. In nurse education those changes is a result from the
reorganization of nursing schools and their relationships with professional contexts.
The theoretical framework focuses on the teachers' professionalism which presupposes
an ideal of public service, ethical, personal, professional awareness, guiding values for
the professionality, understood as a set of competences comprising knowledge, attitudes
and skills required for the professional performance (Estrela, 2001; Gewirtz et al. 2009).
The main research issue is the following: Which view of nurse teachers about the
changes that have occurred in nursing higher education? Which influence that such
changes have on their conceptions of teaching and pedagogical practices?
The objective is: to develop the consolidation of specific competencies for nurse
teachers, at the level of pedagogic activity, research and dissemination of knowledge,
founding a sense to innovation.
The research is based on the interpretative paradigm with a qualitative methodology. It
uses semi-structured in-depth interviews. The sample includes twenty nurse teachers
from four higher educational state nursing colleges in Lisbon.
The results show the development of a benchmarking based on nursing teacher’s
concepts on their professionalism, illustrating numerous pedagogical practices, which
integrates four domains of competencies from nurse teachers: ethical; sociopedagogical; self-developmental and socio-organisational competencies
Methodology
This research is based on an interpretative in which the methodological level is open
and flexible, trying to articulate the conceptual framework and empirical data, to reach
new conceptualizations.
The main research issue is the following: Which view of nurse teachers about the
changes that have occurred in nursing higher education? Which influence that such
changes have on their conceptions of teaching and pedagogical practices?
The research is based on a qualitative methodology. The sample includes twenty nurse
teachers from four higher educational state nursing colleges in Lisbon. Data collection
was taken by semi-structured interviews to twenty coordinator and assistant teachers,
and by the observation of nurse teachers’ practice (four assistant teachers), from four
higher educational state nursing colleges in Lisbon.
Data analysis was based on Miles & Huberman (1991) interactive model.
Afterwards we integrate an international project in FINE 2007-2009, redefining the
results of the on-going research, where competencies in nursing education have also
been redefined in a number of European countries.
Conclusions
The results allowed an integrating view on the data, leading to the proposal of a model
for nursing teacher’s professionalism and a proposal for competences benchmarking of
nurse teachers.
The results presented in this paper relate to the content analysis of semi-structured
interviews which comprising the two groups of participants, the coordinator and
assistant teachers.
The results highlight a new teaching professionalism guided by professional values and
show the emergence of new competencies thus required as a the field of: educational
and information technologies; teamwork; project management; diversity of pedagogical
methodologies; consultancy/advisory skills; development of transnational working
relationships, linguistic and intercultural competencies.
The benchmarking started of numerous discussions about nurse educators’
competencies in FINE Workshops (2007 2009). It integrates four domains of
competencies:
-
Ethical - Relates to values and professional ideals
-
Socio-pedagogical - Relates to the performance of the teacher in training
situations
-
Self-developmental - Relates to the performance of the teacher with regard to
him/herself (ongoing training)
-
Socio-organisational - Relates to participation in one’s surroundings
(partnerships, net work)
The research highlight a new way of thinking about teaching, regarding a change that
leads to a professional model joining together concepts and practices that focus on
problem solving, guided by professional values. In addition, the emergence of a teacher
facilitating learning who is active in mentoring their students, who encourages the
design of training and research projects, with a view to producing, disseminating
knowledge and influencing policies of education and show clearly a transition of nurse
education.
Keywords – Competencies benchmarking, nurse teachers professionalism; higher
education changes.
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