Standardized testing in nursing education: Preparing students for NCLEX-RN® and practice.

Standardized testing that predicts nursing student success accurately and identifies weak content areas has played a critical role in nursing education. Critics of such testing lament the harm of this type of testing, often misinterpreting common practices as well as overlooking all value. The goal of nursing school is to graduate competent professionals with adequate knowledge to practice safely, who can pass the NCLEX-RN® and gain employment. The use of standardized exit exams or comprehensive exams that are valid and reliable should be embraced as evidence-based, academically rigorous evaluation tools, much like the discipline of education has embraced the Praxis Exam. This paper will present evidence supporting the value of "program exit standardized testing" and address the importance of assessing students and focusing on minimum competency. As a profession that prides itself on the use of evidence to guide practice, we need to use evidence to guide policy development with respect to the use of standardized testing in nursing education.

A report on a national study of doctoral nursing faculty.

This article reports on a national study of doctoral nursing faculty, including both PhD and Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) faculty. Using a national sample of 624 doctoral nursing faculty, we surveyed individuals on a variety of issues, including succession planning, retirement, quality of life as a doctoral faculty member, their views on the new DNP degree, and how they view the future of doctoral nursing education. Study implications for both DNP and PhD faculty are explored and the meaning of the findings of the study for the future are discussed, including new items that will be investigated in a repeat survey in 2012.

Hospital room design and health outcomes of the aging adult.

OBJECTIVE: To determine differences in the rate of falls, healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs), and the degree of social isolation in hospitalized older adults admitted to private versus semi-private rooms. BACKGROUND: The American Institute of Architects recommends that private rooms become the industry standard for all new construction of acute care hospitals. Healthcare design researchers contend that private rooms decrease infection, facilitate healthcare workers' efficiency, provide space for families, and afford greater access to privacy. Although links between room type and health outcomes have been described in the literature, the actual relationship between these two variables has not been determined, nor is it clear whether a one-size-fits-all approach to hospital design is appropriate for all patient populations, particularly older adults. METHODS: This retrospective case comparative design utilized a sample of patients admitted to the University Medical Center of Princeton in 2006 and received full internal review board approval. Patient records were randomly selected through the admission/discharge/transfer system of the hospital and then divided into two groups based on room type. Data collected included demographics, incidence of falls, HAIs, and risk of social isolation. RESULTS: All patients were more than 65 years old and had been admitted to the hospital for a variety of diagnoses. Length of stay was between 3 and 10 days. There was no significant difference between the type of room and the likelihood of falling (p = .37), however the relative risk of falling in a private room was 4.01. There was no significant difference in the occurrence of HAIs based on room type (p = 1.0). The risk-of-social-isolation variable was unable to significantly affect which hospitalized older adults would suffer a negative outcome, fall, or HAI (p = .52). CONCLUSION: Room type may play a role in the occurrence of falls in hospitalized older adults, but room type alone does not increase the chance of acquiring an infection in the hospital. Nor does the risk of social isolation affect the likelihood of an adverse outcome.

Faculty colleagues in your classroom as doctoral students: is there a conflict of interest?

The 4 authors, a faculty member, department chair, associate dean, and college dean, identify and analyze issues surrounding nursing faculty as doctoral student, particularly when faculty members are enrolled in their employer's doctoral nursing program.

The concept of health literacy within the older adult population.

Health literacy is a relatively new concept that has been evolving at a rapid pace over the past decade. As recently as 2004, nursing researchers were contributing only a small portion of the existing body of knowledge as it related to the concept of health literacy. But in the last 4 to 5 years, this trend has changed. More interest demonstrated by nursing scholars has caused an exponential increase in the literature being produced. The research to date has shown a direct correlation between low health literacy and poor health. Older adults have been identified as a vulnerable population with an estimated two-thirds of US adults aged 60 and older having inadequate or marginal literacy skills. A concept analysis of health literacy in the older adult population is warranted at this time to further clarify the concept and provide standard terminology and definitions for future holistic nursing practice and research, leading to better identification of health-literacy deficits and intervention within vulnerable populations.

The benefits of a leadership program and executive coaching for new nursing academic administrators: one college's experience.

Despite attention given to the nursing shortage and now the nursing faculty shortage, what is perhaps less visible but equally critical are the pending retirements of most of the current cadre of academic nursing administrators in the next decade. With only 2.1% of current deans, directors, and department chairs in 2006 aged 45 years or younger, there may be a pending crisis in leadership development and succession planning in our nursing schools and colleges. This article describes an innovative leadership development program for largely new nursing academic administrators, which combined a formal campus-based leadership symposia and executive coaching. This article is particularly useful and practical in that actual case studies are described (albeit modified slightly to protect the identity of the individual administrator), providing a real-life narrative that rarely makes its way into the nursing academic administration literature. The executive coaching focus is very sparsely used in nursing academia, and this college's success using this professional development strategy is likely to become a template for other institutions to follow.