The learning resources movement: its relationship to nurse education

This paper addresses the place, position and potential of what is characterized as the 'Learning Resources Movement' in nurse education. It is based on experiences drawn from 10 years viewing resource use in general and nursing education, and, more recently, on observations arising from a research project looking at the growth within the school of nursing, of organizational structures for their development. It claims that the true potential of the movement has nowhere been fully realized. It sees the present position as indeterminate and misconceived. It claims that further development of such resources as are and will be available is intricately tied up with the professional development of nursing in a 'chicken-and-egg' situation. It argues that the stage has now been reached where the successful development of the one cannot proceed without the successful development of the other. Drawing on a fairy-tale analogy the paper views the Learning Resources Movement as a powerful tool for seeing through the shining surfaces of what to many are new curricular clothes and dealing with the basic truths of the situation underneath.