Midwifery Students’ Acquisition and Retention of Essential Newborn Care Competencies: An Experimental Study

@#Introduction: Annually, over two million newborns die worldwide immediately after birth, mostly because of failure to initiate and sustain breathing. A significant decline in newborn deaths can be achieved by using proper essential newborn care (ENC) techniques. Competency-based education (CBE) could successfully build ENC skills. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of applying CBE on Midwifery students’ knowledge and skills acquisition and retention of ENC. Methods: This quasi-experimental study recruited third-year under-graduate midwifery students (n=54). They were equally assigned to the interventional and control group. The interventional group was taught ENC by using CBE, whereas the control group was taught by using traditional methods. Students’ ENC knowledge was assessed three times using a multiple-choice question exam. The ENC skills were measured twice by using the Essential Neonatal Care Performance Checklist. Results: The intervention group exhibited significant ENC knowledge and skills, performance acquisition, and retention (p<0.001). Conclusion: CBE is a useful educational model for the acquisition and retention of ENC.

Students' feedback on objective structured clinical examinations [OSCEs] experience in emergency nursing course

Objective Structured Clinical Examinations [OSCEs] are an effective assessment strategy for assessing clinical skills and for highlighting curriculum problem areas Since its inception, the OSCE has been increasingly used to provide formative and summative assessment in various medical disciplines. The study was conducted at Critical Care Nursing and emergency Department, the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, Specifically in emergency nursing course. Data were collected using questionnaire comprised 26 items to determine students' feedback in relation to OSCE as an assessment method in acute care. The majority of students agreed that the OSCE was comprehensive and covered a wide range of knowledge and clinical skills taught and in addition the exam was less stressful than other exams and the students felt the OSCE exam highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. Also, the exam increase their self confidence to face real situations. OSCE as an assessment method is an effective method to test students' competencies and teachers can diagnose the teaching defects and OSCE provides opportunities for students to learn from mistakes and increase their self confidence .OSCE can be implemented in different nursing specialties

Dispositions to think critically among nurse educators

Nurse Educators' critical thinking dispositions have a direct influence on the educational process and its outcome. In fact, the external measure of nurse educators' effectiveness is their graduates'abilities to think critically [6, 13]. Hence, they should demonstrate competence related to critical thinking in order to be role model, open doors to new perspectives of the world for their students, as well as foster self-confidence and encourage lifelong learning. The aim of this study is to determine the critical thinking dispositions among nurse educators. This study was carried out in all scientific nursing departments at the Faculty of Nursing, University of Alexandria, included all nurse educators who were available at the time of data collection in the above mentioned settings and willing to participate [n=151]. The data was collected using California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory [CCTDI]. the current study revealed that 70.9% of nurse educators had positive disposition toward critical thinking, while less than one quarter of them [21.2%] had ambivalence disposition and only 7.9% strong positive disposition toward critical thinking disposition. It can be seen that the critical thinking self-confidence and analyticity subscale had higher mean scores, whereas the truth seeking subscale had the lowest mean score. There was a significant difference between nurse educators' academic degree and truth seeking, systematicity and total critical thinking disposition scores. The findings of this study revealed that the highest scores in self-confidence and analyticity and the lowest score in truth seeking. So, Studies should be conducted to examine the relationship between critical thinking dispositions and other variables such as critical thinking skills, thinking styles, leadership styles, personality type, teaching styles, burnout, and nurse educators' roles and core competencies