Transformations in nursing education: Voices of senior faculty members with decades of experience

Nursing education in Türkiye has undergone profound structural transformations over the past decades, driven by rapid program expansion, intensifying demands for research productivity, digitalization, and the erosion of academic-clinical continuity. Despite their centrality to educational quality, the lived experiences of senior nursing faculty members navigating these changes remain largely unexplored.

To explore how senior nursing faculty members in Türkiye describe the major transformations in nursing education throughout their careers and how these changes have shaped their professional roles and academic identities.

Descriptive qualitative research design using thematic analysis.

Multiple higher education institutions providing nursing education in Türkiye.

Twelve senior nursing faculty members were recruited through purposive sampling with maximum variation, supplemented by snowball sampling to reach participants across diverse institutional contexts; the mean age was 54.67 years, with an average of 29.50 years of academic experience.

Data were collected through semi-structured, in-depth, online individual interviews. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis framework. Rigor was ensured through reflexive researcher positioning, collaborative analytic discussion, and member checking with six participants.

Three themes emerged: the transformation of academic nursing identity, characterized by growing distance from clinical practice and competing academic demands; shifting student cultures and the transformation of teaching, reflecting pedagogical alienation and decreased depth of learning; and the transformation of academic production from quality to quantity, characterized by metric-driven academic value, disconnection from nursing practice, and the burden of academic productivity.

Senior nursing faculty members in Türkiye are navigating interlocking structural pressures that have destabilized the professional foundations of nursing academia. Urgent institutional responses are needed, including restructuring academic roles to protect clinical engagement, supporting pedagogical adaptation, and reconceptualizing promotion criteria to honor the full breadth of nursing scholarly contribution.