The development of a measuring instrument to determine the educational focus of students at a nursing college

Abstract

The question the researcher set out to answer was "What is the educational focus of a nursing college when viewed within Bevis and Watson's Humanistic-Educative-Caring Curriculum Paradigm versus a Stimulus-Response Curriculum Paradigm?" The purpose of this study was to develop and test an instrument based on the Bevis and Watson Humanistic-Educative-Caring Model; an educational paradigm shift from the Tylerian rationale in nursing education.

A questionnaire comprising 181 Two-Choice Comparative-Value-Statement Items was developed and tested. A non-experimental research design was implemented. During the developmental phase, a non-probability, purposive sample was used; the questionnaire (instrument) was developed; data were analysed by applying content analysis and the questionnaire was refined. During the testing phase a stratified, random sample was used consisting of first to fourth year students from two nursing colleges from the Gauteng Province; the items were tested against biographic data and hypotheses resulting from the Bevis and Watson model. Six conceptual continuums comprise the Bevis and Watson model namely, the Learner Maturity Continuum, the Teacher-student relationship, the Teacher-student structure, the Typology of Learning, Criteria for Teacher-Student Interactions and Criteria for Selecting and Devising Learning Experiences. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were utilised. The results indicated that the educational focus of the respondents with regard to the Bevis and Watson model was predominantly humanistic. The exception occurred with regard to TUTOR: Teacher-student structure; pertaining to hypothesis 7 on language; and hypothesis 9 on gender, where a behaviouristic orientation appears to prevail. Significant differences were found between the model variables (conceptual continuums) and year group, language, college A and B, and gender. In hypothesis 5, although a humanistic orientation predominated, the 4th year students tended to display an increasing behaviouristic orientation. In hypothesis 8, although a humanistic orientation predominated, college A appeared less humanistic than college B.

Recommendations were made regarding nursing education and further research studies to refine the instrument. The implementation of the Bevis and Watson model calls for a curriculum paradigm shift in nursing education.