A Focused Ethnography to Explore Nursing Faculty Experiences in Integrating Informatics Tools to Support Undergraduate Students’ Learning and the Development of Informatics Competencies
Nurses working in today’s health care environment are expected to use a variety of digital/informatics tools to improve patient care outcomes. Likewise, nursing education is becoming more reliant on these tools to support teaching and learning. Yet, little is known about Canadian nursing faculty members experiences with integrating digital/informatics tools into the curriculum and teaching practice as well as their perceptions as to how these educational experiences contribute to developing informatics competencies in undergraduate nursing students. This study is a focused ethnography using one-on-one semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of nursing faculty teaching in western Canadian universities undergraduate programs. Findings will provide insights into the beliefs, successes, and challenges of faculty members who have or have not integrated digital/informatics tools, pedagogical theory supporting their practice in integrating these tools, and their views on how these tools could help foster nursing students’ development of informatics competencies. Results from this study may also serve as a baseline for establishing best practice guidelines to assist nursing faculty in embracing digital/informatics tools in Canadian nursing education.