Can nursing educators learn to trust the world’s most trusted profession?

Abstract

Nursing and nursing education face a paradox whereby the world's most trusted profession seems not to trust its own students and practitioners. Much of nursing education has adopted what has been memorably described as the 'cop shit' approach. This is the panoply of surveillance, anti-plagiarism and proctoring technologies that appear to be used more for policing and punishment of an inherently dishonest student body than to develop ethical and scholarly writing among future peers and colleagues.Nurses in practice may experience similar levels of distrust as they face growing micromanagement and control of both their appearance and nursing practice. We propose that these practices of distrust emerge, not from malice, but rather from the omnipresent neoliberalism and managerialism that engulf almost every aspect of health and university life. Neoliberalism's success has been to reformat academia and practice to the point where such ingrained mistrust has become merely a neutral recognition of 'the real world'. Dismantling nursing and education's 'cop shit' culture and replacing it with the trust and respect that the world's most trusted profession is accorded by wider society will not be easy, but it is vital for the future of nursing.

Same Old New Normal: The Ableist Fallacy of “Post-Pandemic” Work

“…Yet more often, technological innovations that could facilitate transformational advancements in accessibility instead get used for surveillance and punishment. Activist scholars have accurately referred to such practices as "cop shit" (Darbyshire & Thompson, 2021). The use of sophisticated digital technologies to moni-tor and sanction people appears widely throughout capitalist societies, with nuances specific to unique work contexts such as university education (Wan & Albracht, 2021).…”

Application of trauma‐informed care principles in academic nursing settings during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Robust discussion in higher education literature has demonstrated that such technologies invade privacy and as such are a form of violence. 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 These technologies have also been demonstrated to lack impact on learning, as the multiple choice exams they often accompany are a poor marker of understanding. 35 , 36 As a profession, embracing this opportunity to step away from standardized testing models to those that allow students to demonstrate understanding in other ways would be an excellent step forward.…”

“…These requirements create both a ranked system of privilege and a significantly isolating situation for students. That these strict policies focused on both controlling many aspects of students’ actual behavior and inclusion of policing the “appearance of violations” demonstrates an important lack of trust in students’ ability to make reasonable choices 31 …”

Redefining Cheating on Written Exams

“…In order to shift toward authentic assessment, nurse educators need to learn to trust students. Darbyshire and Thompson14 argue that educators must stop policing students because learning to trust students is also essential for the future of nursing. Nursing is founded on trust 9.…”

“…Then, educators need to learn to trust students. 14 Once trust is established, a shift toward more authentic forms of assessment can be made. Educators are encouraged to (1) identify measurable learning outcomes that are connected to real-world practice settings; (2) consider the context that nurses in the real-world need to use the testable material in; (3) design exams that require reflection and critical thought to answer; (4) use the same time, collaboration, and surveillance limitations as the real-world setting; (5) provide students with feedback on their performance; and (6) when cheating occurs, help everyone involved learn from the incident.…”