Competency Based Nursing Education: Guide to Achieving Outstanding Learner Outcomes

The need for competency-based education (CBE) in nursing has been recognized for years. CBE provides a way to help ensure that learners are competent at the end of educational endeavors. This book is designed as a resource for nurse educators who are responsible for diverse education programs.

Authors Anema and McCoy bring together all the elements of CBE, and provide a road map to develop, implement, and evaluate competency-based approaches to nursing education. The book provides valuable guidelines for developing organizational strategies, new care delivery approaches, and project planning tools. Guidance on performance assessment tools and data collection is also included.

Key features:

• Explains why CBE is needed and how it can help improve current education programs
• Presents practical guidelines on how to transition to the CBE approach
• Provides helpful guidance on developing valid and reliable assessments
• Includes critical information on data collection and the use of data to verify achievement of outcomes
• Contains practice activities at the end of each chapter to simulate real-life situations

The need for competency-based education (CBE) in nursing has been recognized for years. CBE provides a way to help ensure that learners are competent at the end of educational endeavors. This book is designed as a resource for nurse educators who are responsible for diverse education programs.

Authors Anema and McCoy bring together all the elements of CBE, and provide a road map to develop, implement, and evaluate competency-based approaches to nursing education. The book provides valuable guidelines for developing organizational strategies, new care delivery approaches, and project planning tools. Guidance on performance assessment tools and data collection is also included.

Key features:

• Explains why CBE is needed and how it can help improve current education programs

• Presents practical guidelines on how to transition to the CBE approach

• Provides helpful guidance on developing valid and reliable assessments

• Includes critical information on data collection and the use of data to verify achievement of outcomes

• Contains practice activities at the end of each chapter to simulate real-life situations
  

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Janice K. Warrington, MSNEd, RN(Delaware Technical & Community College)
Description:The book is designed as a resource for educators who are responsible for nursing programs.
Purpose:The authors provide an outline of the processes essential to the implementation of competency-based education as well as a detailed explanation of what it is. The book includes tools for developing, implementing, and evaluating competency-based education and challenges educators to reconsider revising their current teaching methods.
Audience:The audience includes advanced practice nurses and faculty who are responsible for developing educational programs. Dr. Marion Anema has written extensively on nursing education and the practice of nursing. Dr. Jan McKoy has held appointments as nursing faculty and department chair.
Features:The book starts with an overview of competency-based nursing that includes the theory and driving forces behind the concept as well as the pros and cons, allowing readers to see both sides and draw their own conclusions. It then provides a complete guide to essential processes for developing competency statements to address all levels and types of learning as well as developing objective and performance assessments. The authors also discuss why competency-based education is important to the profession and provide strategies to overcome implementation challenges.
Assessment:This is a jumping-off point for nurse educators who are looking to make changes in their curriculum and methods of teaching nursing.

Marion G. Anema, PhD, RN, has held faculty appointments at a variety of educational institutions, including most recently, Associate Director, Nursing Programs, College of Health Professions, Western Governors University (2007 - 2008), Mentor & Faculty Chair, Walden University (2001-2007), Dean, School of Nursing, Tennessee State University (1990-2001), and Assistant Dean, Texas Woman's University, Dallas. (1979-1990). She holds certificates as an online instructor, in case management, online quality management, and intensive Bioethics (Georgetown Univ). Her scholarly articles have been published in DCCN, JONA, Nursing, J of Nursing Education, Nurse Educator, International Nursing Review, Computers in Nursing, J of Continuing Education in Nursing, among others.

Jan McCoy, PhD, RN, held early career roles as a school nurse, flight nurse, and cardiac cath circulating and scrub nurse. For the majority of her nursing career, she has held nursing appointments at Central Wyoming College (1986-1999), including Chair & Director, Nursing Faculty, Chair, Prof/Tech Div & AH Division, Dir, Distance Education/Lifelong Learning. More recently, Dr. McCoy has served as nursing faculty at Walden University, Individual Service Coordinator, Wyoming Dept of Health, and Independent Contractor & Consultant for Sylvan Learning Systems (2003-2006), as well as interim Director of Nursing Programs & Mentor, Western Governors University, Salt Lake City, Utah (2006 - 2008).