Certification in Nursing
Education: Implications for
Nurse
Practitioner Faculty
CHRISTOPHER
W. BLACKWELL & JULEE B. WALDROP
Abstract
Faculty
selected to teach in programs that educate nurse practitioners (NPs) are often
excellent clinicians. However, nurse
practitioner faculties often have knowledge deficits in areas related to
educational pedagogy, theory, and instructional and evaluation methodology. Nurse
Practitioner (NP) faculty can develop capabilities as an educator both via
formal education or self-study.
Achievement of competency as an educator can then be documented by
obtaining the Certified Nurse Educator credential offered by the National
League for Nursing. This paper presents
an overview of the certification program, suggestions for preparation and
discusses benefits of holding this certification for the faculty member who
teaches in graduate programs that prepare nurse practitioners.
F |
aculty selected to teach in
programs that educate nurse practitioners (NPs) are often excellent clinicians.
They may also have experience as outstanding preceptors and possess advanced
clinical and/or research degrees that have prepared them as expert researchers,
healthcare providers, or both. However,
they often have no experience in classroom teaching or knowledge of curriculum
development or assessment and measurement. These teachers’ abilities to
evaluate scholarly work using skills beyond what they learned from their own
personal educational experience as students are often underdeveloped.
This is
often because historically only programs in the discipline of education focus on
the pedagogy of teaching and learning. A
lack of knowledge about educational theory and effective teaching strategies
can create significant knowledge deficits that hinder the NP faculty member’s
ability to effectively execute his or her academic teaching role. This then can threaten the quality of
education NP students ultimately receive.
Some
states have determined that this type of knowledge is a pre-requisite for
teaching in nursing. As of 2011, at
least six states require documented knowledge or evidence of formal course
credit in the areas of adult education, teaching methodology, curriculum
development, implementation and evaluation and student evaluation and
assessment (Colorado, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Utah, Wyoming)
for faculty employment (Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government
Accountability, 2007).
There are two major ways NP faculty can remedy
this problem. The first is to take nurse
education courses, optimally in a program which grants a nurse educator
certificate to document this achievement.
Courses in teaching strategies, learning theory, curriculum development,
evaluation, clinical teaching and use of technology in teaching can prepare the
novice NP educator with skills which foster growth in the role. Such courses will help him or her become a
more effective teacher as well as thoughtfully participate in curriculum and
other program discussions (Kohtz, et al., 2008).
Novice
NP educators can also develop needed educator competencies through self-directed
learning. Attending nursing conferences
focused on the education of nurse practitioners such as the annual conference
of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculty (NONPF)
is an example. Many colleges and
universities also provide educational programming opportunities as part of faculty
development. In depth self-study is also
possible through reading books and journal articles on nursing education.
Preparation for the CNE examination through reading of NLN identified
resources (a sample of which is provided in Table 1) is also a potential
mechanism to gain knowledge on topics essential for nurse educators.
Table 1: Selected Resources for Self Study for the Certified Nurse
Educator Exam
· National
League for Nursing (2011). Certified nurse educator candidate handbook.
Available from
www.nln.org/facultycertification/handbook/cne.pdf
· Godshall,
M. (2009). Certified nurse educator (CNE)
review manual. Wittman-Price, R. (Editor).
New York, NY: Springer
Publishing Company.
· CNE Exam
Secrets Test Prep Team.(2011). Certified
nurse educator exam secrets study guide:
CNE test review for the certified
nurse educator examination. Beaumont, TX: Mometrix Media LLC.
· McDonald
M. (2007). The nurse educator’s guide to
assessing learning outcomes. (2nd ed.). New
York, NY: Jones & Bartlett
Publishers.
· Billings,
D. & Halstead, J. (2008). Teaching in
nursing: A guide for faculty. (3rd ed.). Philadelphia,
PA: Saunders:Philadelphia,.
· Oermann,
M. & Gaberson, K. B. (2009). Evaluation
and testing in nursing education. (3rd
ed.) New
York, NY: Springer Publishing Company
· Gaberson,
K. & Oermann, M. (2010). Clinical
teaching strategies in nursing. (3rd ed). New York,
NY: Springer Publishing Company.
The
History of the Certified Nurse Educator Program
The
National League for Nursing (NLN) developed the Certified Nurse Educator (CNE)
program in 2005 with the mission to “recognize excellence in the advanced
specialty role of the academic nurse educator” (NLN, 2012, p.2). The committee
drafted the Scope of Practice for Nurse
Educators (2005) with the intent to “describe
Academic Nursing Education as a specialty area and an advanced nursing practice
role” (NLN, 2012, p. 2).
This
document provided specific terminology that defined the academic nurse
educator’s practice and identified eight areas of essential competence. These
competencies form the content outline for the CNE examination. The NLN (2012)
currently identifies four main goals of the CNE certification program:
1)
Distinguish academic nursing
education as a specialty area of practice and an advanced nursing practice
role within professional
nursing.
2)
Recognize the academic nurse
educator’s specialized knowledge, skills, abilities and excellence in practice.
3) Strengthen the use of core competencies of
nurse educator practice.
4) Contribute to nurse educators’ professional
development (p. 2).
As of 2010, a
total of 2,078 nurse educators have earned the CNE credential
(McCumpsey, 2010). Certified Nurse Educators are present in all 50 states and
Washington, D.C. (Ortelli, 2008). There
are two options for meeting the eligibility criteria to sit for the CNE exam (see
Table 2). The CNE examination is offered during
specific testing cycles with a range of availability similar to other nursing certification
exams.
Table 2: Eligibility
Criteria for Certified Nurse Educator Examination
|
OPTION 1 |
OPTION 2 |
|
Current licensure as a Registered
Nurse in the U.S. or U.S. territory |
Current licensure as a Registered
Nurse in the U.S. or U.S. territory |
|
Masters or doctoral degree with a
major emphasis in education OR A masters or doctoral degree that
includes nine credit hours or more of graduate level education courses in
areas such as curriculum development and evaluation, instructional design,
principles of adult learning, assessment and measurement and evaluation,
principles of teaching and learning and instructional technology |
|
|
|
Four or more years of full-time
employment in the academic nurse faculty role within the past five years. |
NLN, 2012
Discussion
Nurse Practitioner Faculty and the CNE Major Content Areas
The CNE exam has
six content areas:
1) Facilitation
of learning; 2) Facilitation of learner development and socialization; 3) Use
of assessment and evaluation strategies; 4) Participation in curriculum design
and evaluation of program outcomes; 5) Pursuance of continuous quality
improvement in the academic nurse educator role; 6) Engagement in scholarship,
service, and leadership; 6a) Functioning as a change agent and leader; 6b)
Engagement in the scholarship of teaching; and 6c) Functioning effectively
within the institutional environment and academic community (NLN, 2012, p.5). Each
has relevance to the competencies of the NP educator.
Content area
1: facilitate learning.
This content
area comprises the largest percentage of the CNE exam at 25%. The specific
competencies of this content area focus on application of evidence-based
strategies to educate students. NP
faculties apply the essentials of this content area throughout their
curriculum, focusing on evidence-based practice and quality improvement
(American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, 2010; Institutes of Medicine, 2003).
Consequently, NP educators need to model strategies students can use to
continuously evaluate their own clinical thinking and evaluation of research
findings and other types of clinical evidence. While an NP faculty member may
have been exposed to certain teaching methods during his or her own educational
experience, the process of developing the appropriate methods based on
curricular objectives or competencies are not skills taught in NP
programs. Adult learners respond to a
variety of learning styles and have varying needs. The NP educator must learn and apply teaching
methods that best promote critical thinking and learner maturation.
Content area 2:
facilitate learner development and socialization.
The second
content area of the CNE examination is to facilitate learner development and
socialization. This area pertains to competencies related to the fostering of
cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning and encouraging the professional
development of learners (NLN, 2012). NP faculty must engage students in the
development of their professional role. In addition, the National Organization
of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF) (2006) has identified professional role
development as a specific NP curricular content domain.
Content area 3:
use assessment and evaluation strategies.
Nurse educators teaching at all levels of
nursing education must rely on valid and reliable assessment and evaluation
strategies to measure students’ achievement of core curricular content and competencies.
Professional programs are unique from other doctoral programs. In addition to
earning a degree, graduates complete national certification exams within their
population of focus. Consequently,
educational preparation in these programs will continue to use the
multiple-choice testing format for evaluation of knowledge-based competencies.
This could potentially be a very challenging area for the unprepared NP
educator, who needs to have a working knowledge of how to design test
blueprints, write valid and reliable multiple choice questions, interpret examination
performance statistics, and revise examination items correctly. This is also
achieved through evaluation of performance in the clinical setting. Educators
must have a thorough knowledge about safe and competent practice and should be
able to apply professional standards during the clinical evaluation process.
They must also be able to critically evaluate level-specific and
program-specific outcomes and ensure evaluation methods allow students to
demonstrate appropriate mastery of these outcomes.
Content area 4:
participate in curriculum design and evaluation of program outcomes.
Nurse educators
must be leaders in curriculum design and actively participate in program
development, management, and evaluation; they must also demonstrate an ability
to engage in continuous quality improvement to ensure that students meet
professional practice standards (NLN, 2012; CCNE, 2009). This includes, developing an outcomes based
curriculum that is congruent with the university/college mission and
departmental goals centered on standards such as American Association of
Colleges of Nursing Masters (2011) or Doctoral Essentials (2006) or National
Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties Nurse Practitioner Core Competencies (2011).
Content area 5:
pursue continuous quality improvement in the academic nurse role.
Content area five
on the CNE examination assesses the educator’s knowledge about ways to further
the growth of his or her academic career and the need to pursue lifelong
learning as the infrastructure to that pursuance (NLN, 2012). The concepts of
lifelong learning and acquisition of new knowledge to promote professional
development is certainly not foreign to NP educators.
As clinical experts who are
board-certified nationally, continued clinical mastery is emphasized as a
hallmark of maintaining NP competence and is a mandate for NP certification
renewal. These requirements include continuing experience
in providing care for patients as a practicing NP and completion of continuing
education. Continuing education can either come from approved continuing
education providers or graduate coursework at accredited universities. Other scholarly
activities, such as
publications/presentations and clinical preceptorship can also be used towards
certification renewal.
The same is true for Certified
Nurse Educators. Thus, gaining competence in nursing education is also
essential to the success of NP faculty. The CNE must also demonstrate ongoing competence in the
educator role through a combination of employment as an educator in the
academic setting and completion of continuing education in the core competency
areas (NLN, 2011). NP educators may view the maintenance of dual certification
as both an NP and CNE as a difficult and time-consuming challenge. However, it
is important to note that at least some of the professional development
activities required for certification renewal can be applied to the renewal of
both the CNE and NP credential. For example, the continuing education units
(CEUs) earned from attending a professional development conference focused on
NP education can partially fulfill CEU requirements for both CNE and NP
recertification.
Content Area 6:
Engage in Scholarship, Service, and Leadership
Part A: function as a change agent and
leader.
The first subsection of content area six is
focused on functioning as a change agent and leader. Specifically, this
pertains to the educator’s ability to act as an exemplary faculty member and
promote positive changes within and beyond his or her nursing program.
Advocating for cultural sensitivity, bringing a creative perspective to the
educator role, and evaluating the organizational effectiveness in nursing
education are all aspects of this subsection (NLN, 2012). NP faculties are
active participants in the nursing program, school or department of nursing,
and university. NP faculty should be active leaders on the forefront of
clinical practice; they should be publishing papers relevant to NP practice,
curricular or practice models, or research in academic journals and textbooks
(NTFQNPE, 2008). Active participation in
professional organizations such as NONPF (which focuses on NP education) is
also an example.
This criterion of the CNE exam also
emphasizes the importance of effective mentoring. Mentoring is critical for new faculty and NP
faculty with lesser experience, and is recommended by the NLN (2006) in their
position statement. This is a worthy goal and frequently touted as an important
component of orientation programs for new faculty (Billings & Kowalski,
2008; Hawkins & Fontenot, 2009). Unfortunately, the literature is scarce on
how often this actually occurs in the real world for novice faculty members in
NP programs.
Part B: engage in the
scholarship of teaching.
Bender and Gray (1999)
describe the scholarship of teaching as reciprocal.
NP educators develop the ability to use feedback from students to improve their
approaches to content delivery and constantly work to better the methods they
use to ensure student attainment of knowledge. The scholarship of teaching
allows educators to test new teaching styles and provides evidence for unique
approaches to instruction. It is one way in which NP educators improve the
quality of their instruction and their institution’s NP program. An essential
mandate of engaging in the scholarship of teaching is keeping abreast on the
current teaching-learning literature (Spath, 2007). Just as nurse clinicians must maintain
currency on new and emerging practice paradigms, nurse educators cannot
possibly maintain their competency in the educator role if they are not
perpetually consulting the most up-to-date data about effective teaching. Preparing
for the CNE exam through either formal course work or self-study and developing
a strong foundational knowledge of the teaching-learning literature can be a
basis on which to begin building the scholarship of teaching. In addition, the integration of current
clinical practice and teaching expertise is the ideal for NP educators and a
scholarly approach to evaluating this contribution to the realm of teaching is
needed (Glanville & Houde, 2004).
Part C: functioning effectively within the
institutional environment and academic community.
In order for NP faculties to truly have
competency in the educator role, they must be actively involved in the governance
of their NP program, department, school or college of nursing, and institution.
In institutions of higher learning, this is accomplished through NP educators’
service on various committees related to admission, progression, and graduation
of NP students. NP educators should establish partnerships with key leaders
within their institution in order to demonstrate the nursing program’s
commitment and contribution to the institution’s overall mission, institutional
environment and academic community.
Specific examples of how NP faculties
facilitate learning inaccordance with the content listed under this competency
are found within Criterion V in the Criteria
for Evaluation of Nurse Practitioner Programs (NTFQNE, 2008). Table 3 provides examples of specific NTFQNE
(2008) criteria and their congruence with this content area of the CNE
examination.
Table 3. Examples of Congruency between
NTQFPNE Criteria and CNE Content Area 6.C*
NTQFNPE Section Example(s)
I, III, V Identifies
the need for teaching strategies that will prepare
students
to not only provide safe and cost effective care to
patients,
but successfully pass the constantly updated NP
certification
examination as well.
II Mandates
that NP faculty have a direct role in student admission, progression, and
graduation.
III.A Addresses
leadership of NP faculty in promoting change
III.B Addresses
the requirement that NP faculty prepares students
for
their professional NP role through a clear didactic and
clinical
curriculum consistent with the NP role
III.C(1) Discusses
the necessity of NP faculty to ensure program and professional standards are
met through student completion of rigorous coursework and passing of national
board certification examination(s).
IV.B, IV.B(3) Addresses the
importance and necessity of clinical resources
that
support the NP educational experience.
I.B, V.A(3) Addresses the
importance of leadership within the NP
program.
V.A(3), VI.A(2).
Mandates at a minimum annual evaluation of each course
within
the NP curriculum (section [VI.A(1)]).
*NTFQNPE, 2008
Summary and Conclusions
Professional
growth is essential for NP educators. While NP competence is often defined
through a clinical focus, the competency of NP faculties extends beyond this.
NPs who work in educational settings need to also grow in their role as
educators. One way to effectively demonstrate competence and ongoing growth in
this role is through acquiring the knowledge and experience required to become
a Certified Nurse Educator. As demonstrated in this article, the essential
elements of the certification program include educational competencies that are
important for nurse educators that teach within masters and doctoral NP
programs as well.
In conclusion, obtaining the CNE credential is an ideal
professional goal for all academic nurse educators. The knowledge acquisition
required in preparation of attaining the CNE credential provides educators an
excellent opportunity to develop their knowledge base in education and
demonstrate their commitment to quality NP education to their students,
colleagues, and the profession.
About the Authors Christopher
W. Blackwell, Ph.D., ARNP, ANP-BC, CNE is an Assistant Professor at the College
of Nursing, University of Central Florida. Contact Dr. Blackwell at
Christopher.Blackwell@ucf.edu; Julee B. Waldrop, DNP, ARNP, FNP-BC, PNP-BC, CNE
is an Associate Clinical Professor at the College of Nursing, University of
Central Florida. Contact Dr. Waldrop at Julee.Waldrop@ucf.edu.
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