Critical care education: an examination of students' perspectives

Specialist nursing education at the tertiary level is a relatively recent occurrence in Australia. With this move to higher education a variety of issues such as course duration, award level and clinical versus theoretical outcomes provided the impetus for this study. This study examined critical care nursing students' perceptions of undertaking post-graduate education within the higher education sector. Four themes arose from analysis of eight focus group interviews with a total of 42 students from 35 courses offered in eight universities across Australia. The first theme, student burden, included subthemes of financial, heavy workload and student-work conflicts. Student benefits, the second theme, encompassed financial and other benefits. The third theme, clinical experience, incorporated clinical capability, synthesizing, support required and clinical learning. The final theme of student attitude included the subthemes of individual, technology and course. Without student evaluations, curricular improvements including assessment and clinical experience will not evolve to the best of their potential.