Nursing Curriculum Development for the 21st Century - Need assessment and development of conceptual framework -

21세기를 향한 전문대학 간호교육과정 개발 - 요구사정, 개념틀 개발을 중심으로 -

In order to prepare for the coming twenty-first century and to meet changing social demands and health needs, it is necessary to improve the curriculum through development of new conceptual frameworks. The purposes of this study were : 1) to assess the needs of the curriculum of the students, the faculty, the graduates, and the nursing supervisors and head murses ; 2) to develop the conceptual framework which includes philosophy and goals of nursing education based upon needs assessment ; 3) to develop level objectives ; 4) to identigy the contents of the curriculum ; 5) and to develop the faculty. The curriculum was assessed and developed from April, 1995 to March, 1996 through twenty four weekly meetings, two seminars, and two workshops. The process and results of this study are as follows : 1. A needs assessment of the present curriculum was done of the 194 students, 177 graduates, 14 faculty members, and 60 nursing administrators in 5 main areas (objectives, planning and organization, teaching-learning process and methods, evaluation, revision of curriculum). The results showed that there were many descrepancies between expectations and actual situations in all the groups and in all the areas. This implies that there was a necessity for total curriculum revision. 2. To develop the conceptual framework, 1) the core concepts were identified(man, health, environment, and nursing) on the basis of the existing educational philosophy and educational objectives of our school, elicited by group discussions using the nominal group method, one of the needs assessment methods, the philosophy and objectives were restated. 2) Six essential componednts were indentified for the conceptual framework from the restated philosophy and objectives ; nursing process, communication, professional roles, client, health, and nursing. The vertical theread consists of the client and health/nursing ; and the horizontal thread consists of nursing process, communication, and professional roles. 3. The contents of the curriculum were selected on the basis of the educational objectives and organized according to the conceptual framework. 4. The level objectives were then restated. It is expected that the objectives of our school will be accomphished through developing the courses, choosing and Implementing, more effective teaching-learning methods, and evaluating the efficacy of changes implemented. The most important factor will be to continually upgrade the faculty and their teaching skills.