Funded Projects
EIN is pleased to announce its first cycle of two-year grants, awarded in December 2009. The grants were made to four innovators in nursing education to support evaluations of a range of interventions in nursing education including Dedicated Education Units (DEUs); an on-line, accelerated BSN program relying on a mix of on-campus and offsite training, specially prepared clinical preceptors, and innovative course scheduling; and incorporation of a web-based virtual community into the curricula of several nursing programs across the country.
RWJF-EIN grantees will join a learning community with EIN colleagues who share the goals of conducting evaluations, generating evidence and disseminating findings to promote interventions that expand teaching capacity and promote faculty recruitment and retention in nursing education.
Meet Our Grantees
Dedicated Education Unit: Evaluating Innovation in Clinical Education
Principal Investigator: Susan R Moscato, Ed.D., RN
Program Evaluator: Michael Coe, Ph. D., Cedar Lake Research Group
The University of Portland (Oregon), School of Nursing will evaluate the “Dedicated Education Unit (DEU) Model.” The DEU is a hospital teaching unit designed to expand teaching capacity and improve clinical education for nursing students. The DEU reorganizes the roles of staff nurses and academic faculty to increase both the quantity and quality of faculty supervision and clinical education available to students. Practicing nurses receive additional professional development and support to become the primary teachers of students during clinical rotations; academic faculty members provide education and coaching for DEU nurses to increase their clinical teaching skills. The evaluation of the DEU model at four schools of nursing and their acute care hospital partners that operate both DEUs and traditional teaching sites will be conducted by Dr. Michael Coe and his team. Data gathered from student and nurse faculty surveys will be used to compare teaching capacity, faculty work satisfaction and quality of clinical learning environment at DEUs and traditional clinical education sites.
Technology Rich Online Accelerated B.S.N. Program
Principal Investigators: Dawn Pope, MS, and Dr. Jaya Jambunathan, Ph.D.
Program Evaluator: Chere C. Gibson, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison
This project will evaluate the 12-month accelerated online Bachelor’s to BSN program (ACCEL) at the College of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. ACCEL is a technology-rich program, which relies upon on-campus as well as remote sites for didactic and clinical education, engages faculty in teaching courses in one to six-week blocks, and uses online curricula and specially trained clinical preceptors. The impact of the intervention on three EIN outcomes will be assessed: teaching productivity, faculty work-life, and quality of education (including the breadth of education measures provided by the NPO). The evaluation, conducted by Dr. Chere C. Gibson and her team at University of Wisconsin, Madison, will include three comparison schools and collect data from surveys of students and faculty, and interviews with preceptors, coaches and clinical instructors. Outcome measures will be compared among the intervention and comparison schools. Items from the NPO-provided breadth of education measure will be included in student surveys.
The Effect of a Virtual Community on Work-life, Recruitment and Retention among Nursing Faculty
Principal Investigator: Jean Giddens, Ph.D., RN
Program Evaluator: Linnea L. Carlson-Sabelli, Ph.D., Rush University, College of Nursing
This project will evaluate the effectiveness of an innovative teaching application known as The Neighborhood (NBH), is a Web-based virtual community featuring the stories of fictional characters who live within households in the “neighborhood” and are served by various community agencies. Their stories unfold over three semesters and are recorded on web pages that contain text, video vignettes and medical records, which form the basis for student instruction by faculty. Dr. Linnea L. Carlson-Sabelli and her team from Rush University will evaluate the impact of NBH on faculty work-life, faculty recruitment and retention, and student graduation rates. Data collection will include surveys of students and faculty, program records, interviews and focus groups; comparisons of outcomes will be made between seven intervention schools and seven control sites. Items from the NPO-provided breadth of education measure will be included in student surveys.
Project PDQ – Partnering for DEU Development and Quality
Principal Investigator: JoAnn Mulready-Shick, Ed.D., RN, CNE
Program Evaluator: Kathleen M. Rhoades, Ph.D., FBJ Consulting
This project will evaluate the “Partnership for Dedicated Education Unit Development and Quality (PDQ)” program, an intervention implemented in 2007 by the University of Massachusetts, Boston and Partners Healthcare. The PDQ relies on a dedicated hospital unit in which staff nurses and nursing faculty take on new educational roles to deliver more efficient and effective clinical education to nursing students. Dr. Kathleen M. Rhoades from FBJ Consulting, will lead the evaluation, employing a randomized design to assess the impact of the PDQ on faculty productivity, teaching capacity, work-life, institutional costs, and quality of education (including the breadth of education measure provided by the NPO); outcomes associated with the PDQ will be compared to those achieved by the traditional clinical education units.
