Overcoming Challenges to Collaboration: Nurse Educators’ Experiences in Curriculum Change

Abstract

This article describes challenges to effective collaboration encountered by nurse educators as they transformed a unit within a school of nursing in Taiwan. This study introduced collaborative action research as a vehicle for curriculum change. Although the team achieved positive outcomes in transforming a unit, the collaborative process was complex with four major challenges: meaning, time, work culture, and conflicting views. This article provides an overview of the study, and the major challenges posed by working together are expounded and illustrated with excerpts drawn from the study data. Possible reasons for the challenges, how these challenges were overcome, and facilitation of the collaborative process are discussed.

Stakeholder Engagement in Nursing Curriculum Development and Renewal Initiatives: A Review of the Literature

“…Many roles and functions displayed a progression of community engagement that moved beyond the consult phase into the involve and collaborate phases of the spectrum (see Table 2). Involvement and collaboration were reflected in active and mutual participation by stakeholders who served in leadership roles, such as a project lead (Chowthi-Williams et al, 2016;Gillespie, 2014); curriculum committee co-chair (Axtell et al, 2010); or member of an executive team (Jeffries et al, 2013), advisory board (Dorfman et al, 2008;Landry et al, 2011) or task force/committee (Axtell et al, 2010;Chiang et al, 2011;Nosek et al, 2017). These examples are linked under the second theme of formalized roles and functions.…”

“…This high-level work guided the direction of smaller workgroups in which activities were task driven. Workgroup tasks involved reviewing and analyzing existing curriculum to identify critical learning areas, developing new curriculum and change management strategies (Chiang et al, 2011;Chowthi-Williams et al, 2016), determining course level achievement and teaching and learning strategies (Axtell et al, 2010), and developing curricular evaluation plans (Jeffries et al, 2013;Olinzock et al, 2009). Roles and functions did not meet the IAPPC (2018) criteria of empowerment, which involves giving stakeholders total control of final curriculum decisions.…”

“…Participating in early visioning exercises created buy-in and sustained commitment when working collaboratively toward a common goal (D'Antonio et al, 2013;Nosek et al, 2017). Being involved from the onset of a project provided an enriched experience for stakeholders, generated energy and commitment, and allowed them to see the implementation of a strategic vision (Chiang et al, 2011). Feeling a sense of ownership was also connected to achieving concrete milestones and sustaining participation in projects (Chiang et al, 2011;Keogh et al, 2010).…”

“…Central to this theme was the concept of power sharing. This was facilitated by establishing democratic processes and principles for decision making (e.g., objectivity in ideas, active listening, and respect for ideas; Chiang et al, 2011). Integral to the equal and fair distribution of power was providing each stakeholder with a role that was action-oriented (Chiang et al, 2011).…”

Use of Action Research in Nursing Education

“…A second theme was action research that required collaboration and partnerships among hospitals and universities to advance the curricula [55–60]. Third, action research was used to initiate curricula change related to degree requirements [61, 62] and assessment [49, 63, 64]. Fourth, a number of articles focused on making innovative curricular changes to address student or faculty concerns [65–70].…”