COMPETENCYBASED PROGRAM development
Competency-Based Education (CBE) models have shown remarkable success in aligning academic preparation with industry requirements. In a recent program redevelopment, we transformed the nursing curriculum to incorporate CBE principles, emphasizing key competencies to enhance student readiness for the healthcare field. This revamped approach is now in use at Florida A&M University's Nursing Program, and it has already yielded impressive results: the program achieved a 100% pass rate on the NCLEX nursing examination. This outstanding outcome reflects the program’s effectiveness in equipping students with the knowledge and practical skills essential for their nursing careers.
#LearningDesign #ProgramEvaluation #User-Experience #UserResearch #HBCU
The Need. Florida A&M University's Nursing Program has faced challenges with NCLEX pass rates, highlighting a critical need for enhanced educational strategies. To address these issues and align with the industry shift towards competency-based education (CBE), there is a pressing need to redesign the BSN pathway to incorporate CBE principles. This approach will integrate more experiential learning opportunities and focus on key competencies, aiming to better prepare students for the NCLEX examination and their future nursing careers.
The Process. Utilizing a user-centered, empathy-based approach, the design process was meticulously guided by extensive user research. We engaged with over 100 nursing professionals to develop detailed personas and crafted surveys to capture their experiences with nursing programs and the licensing exam. This research provided valuable insights into user needs, which were synthesized into a comprehensive user-research report. This report played a crucial role in informing the program redesign, ensuring that the new content and evaluation strategies were closely aligned with the real-world experiences and requirements of both students and practitioners.
User-Research and Design. The project commenced with a meticulous user-research phase designed to deeply understand and refine the user experience of the program. This phase included a combination of detailed surveys, semi-structured interviews, and comprehensive competency mapping. Surveys were meticulously crafted and distributed to capture a broad range of experiences from over 100 nursing professionals, shedding light on their interactions with existing nursing programs and licensing exams. Semi-structured interviews provided in-depth qualitative insights, allowing us to explore specific challenges and needs in greater detail.
Competency mapping was employed to align educational content with the skills and knowledge required in the field. This thorough approach enabled us to clearly identify the essential elements needed to inform the design of course wireframes, assessments, and learning activities. By integrating findings from these diverse research methods, we were able to develop a program that precisely addresses user needs, ensures a seamless learning experience, and enhances overall program effectiveness.
