Educating for health service reform: clinical learning, governance and capability - a case study protocol

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Healthcare Workforce Development
• Advanced Practice Nursing

Background:

• Nurse practitioner roles are expanding globally, including in Australia, with advanced practice capabilities.
• Existing nurse practitioner education lacks a framework for assessing the quality of specialty clinical learning and teaching.
• Gaps in educational governance hinder the development of consistent, high-quality advanced practice training.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate educational governance and capability theory within Australian nurse practitioner Master's programs.
• To develop an internationally accepted framework for measuring the quality of clinical learning and teaching in advanced specialty practice.
• To inform evidence-based models for postgraduate advanced specialty education.

Main Methods:

• A case study design was employed, involving semi-structured interviews with nurse practitioner students, clinical mentors, and academic staff.
• Direct observation of clinical learning episodes and collection of student documentation from healthcare learning sites were conducted.
• Qualitative data analysis, including coding and aggregation, was used to inform a framework for educational governance and capability learning.

Main Results:

• The study explored learning objectives related to educational governance and capability attributes.
• Data from interviews, observations, and documents were analyzed to identify characteristics of capability and capability learning.
• Findings will inform the development of a framework for educational governance in advanced specialty practice.

Conclusions:

• This research is significant for the Australian health workforce, contributing to the development of advanced specialty postgraduate education.
• The developed framework will guide the quality and governance of clinical learning and teaching for nurse practitioners.
• The study enhances understanding of capability theory for advanced healthcare practitioners, promoting evidence-based educational models.