Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Campus Access Dissertation

Department

College of Nursing

Sub-Department

Nursing Practice

First Advisor

Mary F. Cox

Abstract

The nursing profession is facing today, and in the future, a severe shortage of registered nurses and nurse educators. Currently hospitals and universities are experiencing difficulty in filling nurse educator positions. Students are applying to nursing school and are being turned away due to the nurse faculty shortage. Colleges of nursing are increasing enrollments of students in an attempt to meet the profession's demand for more nurses. Hospitals are striving to accommodate the increased number of students, and nurse educators are trying to provide quality learning experiences. The future success of nursing education is dependent on identifying new clinical educational learning models that provide high quality learning environments for nursing students. This evidence-based practice project examines current research related to using the Dedicated Educational Unit (DEU) model for providing student nurse learning experiences in the clinical practice environment.

The literature was searched to identify overall outcomes related to student satisfaction after learning in the DEU model. The literature revealed that nursing students learning in the DEU reported higher satisfaction compared to students learning in the traditional model. However, student satisfaction may not be an appropriate proxy variable for clinical competency. Therefore, future studies directly measuring competency are recommended to determine student outcomes after participating in clinical learning experiences in the DEU.

Rights

© 2010, Eileene Elizabeth Shake

Share

COinS