Emerging Technology & Nursing Ed

Please complete sections C-E only

I will complete A and B and the Literature Review summary table.

I will attach the five credible sources to use but any sources can be added as needed

Keating, S. B., & DeBoor, S. S. (Eds.)(2017). Curriculum development and
evaluation in nursing education (4th ed.). New York, NY: Springer Publishing
Company.

Emerging Technology & Nursing Ed

C1. Gap Analysis Process

A gap analysis tool, notably, the Nurse of the Future Nursing Core Competencies Gap Analysis Tool (NOFNCC), was used to evaluate the current curricular technology core competencies. As the literature reveals, the Gap analysis helps distinguish the desired and current state of a curriculum (Fater, 2013). The identification of this difference was facilitated by the NOFNCC, an ideal tool for identifying and quantifying the opportunities presented by current curricular technology. The tool groups learning opportunities on a scale of 1 to 4 with 1, 2, 3, and 4 representing no opportunities for student learning, a few opportunities (between 1 and 10), several opportunities (between 11-29), and many opportunities (more than 30), respectively (Fater, 2013). In this context, the NOFNCC was used to assess the opportunities presented by the current and desired state of technology and identify a gap between them.

C1a. Stakeholders

A growing body of knowledge suggests that technology use in clinical learning settings effectively enhances the learning experience and promotes patient safety. For example, a study conducted by Kenny et al. (2020) reveals that providing pre-licensure nursing students with educational resources via mobile devices with scanning applications for quick response codes can lower their anxiety levels and enhance patient safety. Furthermore, Skiba (2016) avers that some emerging technologies such as Klaxoom can help teachers create interactive learning activities that are resourceful to nursing students. Fundamentally, incorporating emerging technologies into nursing education can positively impact students and patient outcomes in the clinical setting.

Despite the promising valuable resources that these technologies may offer, their integration into the clinical setting must be preceded by stakeholder engagement to assist in rigorous evaluation and development of effective mechanisms of implementing the former into the curriculum. In this case, three stakeholders were selected to help complete the gap analysis and provide insights into advancing new technologies in the clinical setting. The first stakeholder was the school administrator at Carrington College of Nursing, who has held the administrative position for nearly ten years and has an MSN in education. The administrator provided valuable insight into the college curriculum’s planning and implementation and the available resources to incorporate new technologies into the nursing program.

The second stakeholder was the senior lecturer at the Carrington College of Nursing, who was chosen to complete the gap analysis. The senior lecturer holds an MSN in nursing, ten years of teaching experience, and is also a health policy expert at a local hospital. The professor provided valuable insight into the extensive use of technology developments in clinical settings and the importance of incorporating such technologies in nursing programs to prepare nursing students for future use. The professor also expressed her views about the benefits and challenges of using new technologies in nursing programs.

The third stakeholder was an Information Technology (I.T.) head at the college, who has worked at the facility for about five years. The I.T. head provided insights about how new technologies are integrated into nursing programs, including the resources and processes that would ensure the effective embedding of the former in the nursing program. The manager also expressed his views on the positive implications of emerging technologies in nursing programs, such as enhancing learners’ experience, making learning more fun, and easier to undertake remotely.

C1b. Methods of Collaboration

Collaboration in this context involves working together with the interprofessional team in analyzing the gap between the current and desired state of technology in the nursing program curricular. Among the collaboration methods that could be used include face-to-face discussions and over-the- computer meetings. The stakeholders could conduct face-to-face discussions in the college’s board room, where there is ample space for the team and tools for virtually demonstrating the facility’s teaching and learning technology. This collaboration method would be effective because, as noted by Sa, Ferreira, and Serpa (2019), face-to-face joint discussions facilitate the possibility of exploring a given area through multiple lenses and gaining new insights on ways of solving issues of interest. Arguably, face-to-face talks would enable the interprofessional team to examine mobile technologies’ implementation into the nursing program from multiple perspectives, including the benefits, use, challenges, and ways of overcoming the hurdles involved.

The second method of collaboration would be over-the-computer meetings. This collaboration technique would involve virtual meetings with the interprofessional team to discuss mobile technologies in the nursing program. This method would be effective because it would allow multiple stakeholders to follow and benefit from the meeting’s essential aspects (Sa et al., 2019). In this context, the technique would facilitate communication among the interprofessional team members, regardless of their time and location during the meeting. Notably, the senior professor, who is actively involved in a local hospital’s activities, could still participate in the meeting when they cannot be physically present for the face-to-face discussions.

Table 2: Curriculum Technology Need-Gap Analysis

Based on rigorous analysis of the college’s clinical setting, it is evident that technology is yet to proliferate into the learning and teaching context, despite the majority of the students having access to smartphones and other mobile technologies such as laptops and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Learning in college is mainly traditional, involving the use of paper charts in teaching. The desired curriculum technology in the facility is mobile technology such as smartphones, iPads, and other PDAs, allowing students to study remotely and easily access and share academic information with their peers and teachers when the need arises.

C2. Current Technologies

Access to advanced technology provides educators and learners with an opportunity to adapt the former in teaching and learning practices. Today, clinical instructors can use a range of emerging technologies to enhance students’ learning experience. The most significant technologies that show promising outcomes in the clinical and other professional settings are mobile technologies such as smartphones and software technologies like cloud tools.

Research shows that mobile technologies are valuable resources in the clinical context. Among the benefits of this technology is its portability and ease of use outside the home, allowing it to be used conveniently for educational purposes (Buabeng-Andoh, 2016). As such, its application in the “Role of the BSN Nurse in Promoting Community Health” would ease the anxiety that students may experience during fieldwork by providing access to valuable academic resources required in clinical decision making. Besides, if not all, most students in developing countries have access to a smartphone, making the technology available for use in learning and teaching in the clinical context.

However, like other technologies, mobile technologies have drawbacks when used in a clinical context. Notably, such devices can easily distract nursing students leading to adverse patient outcomes. This drawback mainly stems from the fact that mobile technology serves other personal needs other than educational purposes, such as interacting with friends online, making it a possible distraction during practice.

The second technology in nursing education programs is cloud tools from firms such as Microsoft and Alibaba. Cloud tools are advantageous because they can improve the students’ learning efficacy by making academic information stored online easily accessible to nursing students anywhere and anytime. Therefore, the technology’s implementation in the course can help students conveniently undertake their roles as community health nurses by retrieving and using files stored in the cloud tools to make critical clinical decisions. However, cloud tools may also have tonnes of disadvantages in the nursing program. Notably, the implementation and maintenance of the tool would be relatively expensive compared to smartphones and iPads.

C3. Technology Challenges

The primary challenge of the current technologies in “The Role of the BSN Nurse in promoting Community Health” is the lack of new technologies in teaching and learning. This challenge forces students and educators to rely heavily on traditional materials such as paper and pens that can be time-consuming. For example, students are forced to conduct manual patient assessments during fieldwork, which is time-consuming and tiring compared to web-based assessments.

The second challenge of the current technology is the limitation of learning in classroom settings. For example, when given important projects, students are forced to limit their discussions to the classroom context as they cannot indulge in further discussions online with their colleagues and educators. Thirdly, the inability to tackle real-life problems is another challenge associated with the current technology. This challenge mainly stems from the fact that students and educators cannot hold discussions outside the classroom setting. As a result, students cannot solve real-life problems due to the unavailability of their educators and academic resources to assist them in the decision-making process in the clinical setting.

C4. Overcoming Challenges

New technologies such as PDAs and cloud tools can be used to overcome the highlighted challenges. Implementing the nursing program tools would help students access course content, share files, and indulge in resourceful online discussions with instructors and peers (Buabeng-Andoh, Totimeh & DeLove, 2020). With such resources at their disposal, the nursing students can also confidently undertake fieldwork related to the course. These new technologies would also help overcome time wastage and constrained off-college communication associated with the current technologies, as students could conduct discussions and share fieldwork findings with instructors and colleagues virtually.

C5. Summary of Findings

New technologies present an opportunity for nursing colleges to enhance the learning experience and outcomes of nursing students. By implementing mobile technologies in learning and making information readily available to learners, clinical instructors could improve the students’ knowledge and help the latter make appropriate clinical decisions. However, before a new technology is implemented, the authors should discuss the matter with interprofessional teams, who have the capability of providing valuable insight into the benefits, challenges, and costs of integration.

C5a. Collaboration with Stakeholders

The stakeholder collaboration led to the consensus of implementing mobile technologies, notably, PDAs over cloud tools. This decision was arrived at after a three-hour discussion among the stakeholders. Each stakeholder expressed their views about the proposed technology, its advantages, disadvantages, and challenges. After the debate was closed, the author determined that two-thirds of the stakeholders supported PDAs’ implementation. All stakeholders agreed that both technologies would be essential in learning; however, there were more benefits associated with PDAs than cloud tools. Some of the arguments for this technology included its abundance among instructors and learners, ease of use, and low integration cost in learning.

Organizational Readiness for Curriculum Proposal

1. Force Field Analysis

Not until recently has the use of mobile technologies been researched and integrated into the nursing discipline. Therefore, the technology’s implementation in the current nursing program may not be smooth because it may face multiple forces acting against its integration. However, with Force Field Analysis, the proposal’s implementors can identify the forces that work against mobile technologies’ implementation and develop strategies to overcome them.

D1a. Organizational Factors

Mobile technologies have multiple benefits for students when used as learning tools. However, their integration in the curriculum may be facilitated or impeded by internal and external factors. Internal factors constitute elements within the nursing program and the institution that may impede or facilitate the technologies’ implementation. Some of these factors include human resources such as I.T. managers who may assist in integrating the institution’s new technology. Furthermore, the availability of financial resources in the facility may facilitate the implementation of the technology.

Conversely, external factors comprise elements beyond the facility’s control, which may impede or facilitate the implementation of the technology. These factors include regulatory policies and internet connectivity in the institution. Most notably, the existence of regulations on mobile phone use in the clinical setting may impede technology implementation. Besides, the economy’s stability may influence the students’ ability to afford the technologies, thus facilitating its implementation and use in the institution and nursing program.

D1b. Forces for Integration

Forces for integration are the elements within the organization that would facilitate the implementation of the mobile technologies in the “Role of the BSN Nurse in Promoting Community Health” course. These forces include support systems, such as a champion team that would push for the implementation of the technologies and economic forces such as finances in the institution to fund the acquisition of inventory required in the technology’s integration. Ease of transition from traditional to technology-based curriculum, supported by the extensive use of mobile phones by students and staff, would also be potential forces for the technology’s integration.

D1c. Challenges to Integration

Challenges to integration would constitute forces that would impede mobile technologies’ implementation in the current course. Some of these forces would include regulatory policies that prohibit using the proposed technology in practice due to privacy concerns and resistance by staff to adopt the proposed software. Furthermore, technological forces such as lack of internet connectivity in the facility would discourage students from using the technology because many would be unwilling to incur the expenses associated with daily internet packages.

D2. Identification of Change Theory

While scholars have proposed several change theories, the most significant for the PDA integration and adoption would be Kurt Lewin’s change model. Lewin’s proposed a three-step model for understanding the process of change. The first step, unfreezing, involves creating awareness of the manner in which a firm’s status quo hinders some aspects of its performance and the need for change. The second step, changing, entails the actual integration of change in the organization. The third step, refreezing, involves reinforcing the change and making it the organization’s new norm.

D2a. Justification of Change Theory

The author could effectively implement Kurt Lewin’s change theory in the facility because of its ease of use. Most notably, the change process would begin at the unfreezing stage where students and the faculty would be enlightened of the hindrance to learning associated with the traditional curriculum and the potential benefits that the mobile technologies would bring to all parties. After the students and staff are convinced about the need for change, the mobile technologies would be implemented in the current course and closely monitored for effectiveness. Eventually, the refreezing stage would be marked by providing positive rewards such as academic points for each student that utilizes the technology in the clinical context. Arguably, these rewards would reinforce mobile technologies’ use in the course and make it the nursing program’s new norm.

D2b. Potential Resistance to Technology

Despite its numerous benefits, some parties may find displeasure with integrating the new technology into the course. Individuals may display this displeasure in numerous ways, including resisting technology or disrupting its utilization among those who embrace the change. Some of the potential resistance in this context would come from the faculty, notably educators who may view the new technology as an unnecessary change. Students may also exhibit displeasure with the technology following the perception that it imposes an extra academic burden.

D2c. Plans to Implement Change Theory

As noted, Kurt Lewin’s change theory would be the most manageable model to implement change in the facility. The plan to implement the change would begin with open communication with the faculty and students about the imminent change required in the facility. In this stage, the parties involved would be encouraged to share their views about the new technology. The implementors would also address any concerns about the technology and motivate the parties to accept the change. After the involved parties widely accept the idea, the new technologies would be piloted in the nursing program and evaluated against the pre-developed expectations. Eventually, the implementors would reward students and educators through academic points and positive reviews depending on their utilization of the new technology in the course.

E1. Purpose of Proposal

This proposal aims to advance the integration of mobile technologies, notably PDAs, in nursing programs and the clinical setting. It is quite devastating that new technologies are yet to be integrated into today’s learning clinical setting despite the ongoing global technological advancement. Even worse, some clinical instructors still prohibit the use of PDAs in practice, on the argument of privacy in practice, despite numerous researches proving the benefits that nursing students could derive from their use. This proposal acknowledges the drawbacks of these technologies but still emphasizes their ability to build competent nurses.

E2. Explanation of Proposal and Need Gap

As noted, most nursing students are stuck in the traditional learning setting, which is inefficient in the fast-changing clinical environment and time-consuming. Notably, the current state of curriculum technology limits learning to the classroom setting, making it difficult for students to advance their knowledge in real-life scenarios. However, this proposal fills the need gap for learning efficiency by introducing mobile technologies that could improve students’ learning outcomes by enhancing how they interact with their educators and access academic information during practice.

E3. Importance and Impact of Proposal

The integration of mobile technology into nursing programs and the clinical setting will positively affect learners, instructors, and patient outcomes. On the one hand, students will benefit from the vast information they can access through their mobile devices during practice. Furthermore, students will communicate effectively with their instructors and gain timely feedback on their fieldwork. This ease of communication will help build nurses that are competent to make sound clinical decisions. On the other hand, mobile technologies will also equip instructors with the capacity to monitor the student’s progress through frequent updates of the latter’s findings through the PDAs. Through the collaborative efforts between educators and learners, patients will receive the best services, leading to improved patient outcomes.

References

Buabeng-Andoh, C. (2016). New technology in health education: Nursing students’ application of mobile technology in the classroom in Ghana. Interactive Technology and Smart Education, 15(1), 46-58. doi: 10.1108/ITSE-09-2016-0039

Buabeng-Andoh, C., Totimeh, F., & DeLove, M.A. (2020). The use of smartphones for educational purposes in higher education: Nursing students’ perspectives. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Educational Studies, 15(1), 19-33. doi:org/10.18848/2327-011X/CGP/v15i01/19-33

Fater, K.H. (2013). Gap analysis: A method to assess core competency development in the curriculum. Nursing Education Perspectives, 34(2), 101-105. doi: 10.5480/1536-5026-34.2.101

Kenny, L.T., Gaston, T., Powers, K., & Isaac-Dockery, A. (2020). Anxiety in nursing students: The impact of using mobile technology with quick response codes. Nurse Education Today, 89(2020), 1-6. doi:org/10.1016/j.nedt.2020.104382

Sa, M.J., Ferreira, C.M., & Serpa, S. (2019). Virtual and face-to-face academic conferences: Comparison and potentials. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 9(2), 35-47. doi: 10.2478/jesr-2019-0011

Skiba, D.J. (2016). Consumer electronics show 2016: Implications for nursing education. Emerging Technologies Center, 37(2), 120-121. doi: 10.1097/01.NEP.0000480673.43077.85

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