Assessment of Learning as an Important Process for Nurse Educators - Literature review Example

Educational Need Assessment Name: Institution: Educational Need Assessment Introduction Education involves some transformation for the better in a person; it is a life-long process that begins in the first years of childhood. Education can be defined a process that makes an individual eagerly pursue the ideal perfection on how they are supposed carry themselves around (Jackson, 2012).Education not only provides knowledge and skills but also inculcates values. Need assessment learning is an analytical progression that relies on data collection, partnership, and cooperation to identify and comprehend gaps in learning and performance and to establish future actions (Gupta, 2011). Needs assessment of learning focuses on addressing current issues, specifying future learning and performance needs. The other specific aims of needs assessment learning include solving a current problem and avoiding the past or present problem. Furthermore, the process also seeks to create as well as take advantage of a future opportunity. Additionally, the process seeks to provide learning, development and growth. Needs assessment of learning results can provide useful information for a broad range of reorganizational consideration and service delivery approaches (Kyle, 2008). There are three types of a needs assessment of learning; individual, societal, original and societal. In individual needs assessment learning, the process is focused on outcomes that will be beneficial for an individual leaner. In original needs assessment learning, the process focuses on coming up with outcomes that have never been applied before. Societal needs assessment, on the other hand, focuses on outcomes that are aimed towards responding to societal demands (London, 2011). With the above information, the rationale of this paper is to discuss the concept of a needs assessment of learning. The paper will focus on learning needs and needs assessment with an aim of establishing the goals of each process. Moreover, the paper also aims to give the importance of need educational assessment for nursing educators. The paper will go further and outline the process that is used to identify the learning needs by nursing educators as well as the tools they use. The paper will then make a conclusion based on the information that will be presented. Background Learning needs are defined as a gap of knowledge that exists between a desired level of performance and the actual level of performance. Moreover, it is the gap between what someone knows and what someone needs to know; such gaps exist because of inadequate knowledge, attitude as well as a skill (Bastable, 2006). The primary goal of learning needs is to identify any gaps in knowledge. Moreover, learning needs aim to address these gap by coming up with efficient solutions. Learning also needs have the goal of improving the overall knowledge of the learners. Moreover, learning needs help in prioritizing patient education. It is of interest to note that the outcomes of goals in learning needs are more successful if the goal is the result of a client’s expressed need or interest (Foreman, Milisen & Fulmer, 2010). Needs assessment is an ongoing exercise, valued as much as budget reconciliations and employee performance appraisals. Needs assessment is defined as the organized appraisal of the type, depth, and nature of health needs or problems as perceived by clients, health providers or both in a given community. Prior to conducting any program, assessments should be carried out to ensure that the program is meeting the clients’ needs (Petersen & Alexander, 2007). The goals of needs assessment include establishing an administrative direction that aims to accomplish specific objectives by addressing the clients’ needs. Moreover, the process also seeks to improve the overall quality of healthcare delivery. The other goal of needs assessment is to enable efficient decision making in an organization by coming up with programs that suit their clients. Nursing practice, as well as knowledge, is a constantly and rapidly evolving process. Educational needs assessments are used to not only direct but also direct educational initiatives. Nursing educators derive several benefits from the educational needs assessment. To begin with, the educators can recognize clinically relevant performance gaps that can be addressed by an appropriate educational activity. The educational activity has to come up with performance-based initiatives and assessment measures that will be used to estimate the effect of the program. The other benefit of educational needs assessment to the nursing educators is that they identify the patient’s particular needs. Moreover, through educational needs assessment, the nursing educators characterize information-seeking practices of the target population as a way of establishing the most valuable of engaging them in educational activities. The other benefit is that the educator can identify any barriers that hinder the successful adoption of evidence-based practices. The educators also come up with strategies that aid nurses in addressing such barriers (Kern, Thomas & Hughes, 2010). Discussion Nurse educators require not only knowledge and experience to effectively teach various audiences but also need the clinical evidence to prove their teaching methods and interventions are effective. It is the task of the nurse educator to first discover what the needs of the leaner are and then to find the best means of presenting the information so the patient and family members can master what is required of them to function independently. Educator can realistically support the learner if they understand the pace and pattern of skill development (Bastable, 2008). The process of identifying the learning needs starts by recognizes who the learner is; the nursing educator determines who the learners are for them to come up with effective teaching methods. For example, the nurse educator should determine if they are going to teach an individual patient or a group of patients or if it will be the patient together with their significant other. Hunt (2013) notes that the nurse should that each learner has unique needs. For example, adult learners may be resistant to change and often have to balance their time between work, family as well as a school. Furthermore, a nurse may have the perception that all post-partum mothers need a class of safety issues for the new born. Such an opinion may be based on the nurse’s interaction with one patient and may not be true for all postpartum mothers (Bastable, 2006). The next step in identifying the learning needs is choosing the right setting. The nurse educators need to establish an environment where learners feel a sense of security when they are confiding information. Moreover, the learners need to feel that their concerns are respected and taken seriously. Bastable (2006), notes that maintaining privacy as well as confidentiality is essential in establishing a trusting relationship between the nurse educator and the leaner. The location that is selected for the nursing education should not only be suitable for the nurse but also the learner. If the learner expresses any reservations about the setting, the nurse educator should ensure that they address the issue before the process begins. After agreeing on the location, the next step for the nurse educator is to collect all the important information about the learner. The nurse educator needs to explore health problems as well as issues that are of interest to the learner. This will in turn help the nurse educator determine the type and extent of the content to be included in teaching and the methods of teaching that can be helpful to the learners. Patients together with their family members are a major source of needs assessment information. The nurse educator should ask the learners what they feel is important to them. Dynamically engaging learners in defining their troubles and needs motivates most patients because they have an investment in planning for their learning. Moreover, this allows the nurse to tailor teaching techniques specifically to their unique circumstances (Walsh, 2013). The other step in the process of identifying learning needs is involving the members of the healthcare team. The nursing educator consults with other professionals to gain insight into the needs of patients and their families. Their colleagues serve as excellent sources of information, and therefore collaboration is essential. Furthermore, professional organizations along with government agencies provide insight into learning needs of people with specific problems. Interdisciplinary health care team meetings may be regularly scheduled to review patient cases. Depending on the identified patient needs, disciplines that represented may include nursing, physicians as well as recreational therapy among others. In these meetings both learning needs identified by the health care team and the learners should be considered. It might be useful to request the patient and their family to complete the Patient Learning Needs Scale before the meeting. This scale does not delineate specified content to be taught but helps identify areas of discharge information that the learner wants to know more about. Such information includes diet, medication, activity as well as follow-up resources. The responses provided on this scale can be helpful in focusing on the perceived needs of the learner. It is interesting to note that the responses should be shared with the health care team before the meeting to ensure that they come to the meeting prepared (Rankin, Stallings & London, 2005). The other step that is used to identify the learning needs by the nurse educators is prioritizing needs. After the learning needs have been identified; the nurse educators often find it difficult to set priorities. The nurse educators have to ensure that the basic needs are attended to first. Bastable (2006) suggests that if the basic needs are not attended to first, the nurse educator will find it difficult to attend to other needs. Prioritizing needs helps the nurse together with the patient set realistic and achievable goals. It is of merit to note that that not all learners need to know everything and the assessment can help in discriminating some of the needs raised by the patients. For example, if patients want to know the path physiology of their disease, then their curiosity should be satisfied. However, it is not fundamental for them to learn about this in the learning process. Prioritizing needs can be done by using several criteria, and one of these is dividing the needs into three categories. The first category is the mandatory needs; these are the need that must be learned for survival if the learner’s life is threatened. The learning needs in this category must be met from the onset of the learning process. For example, is a patient experienced a recent heart attack, they need to be aware of the signs and symptoms and when to get immediate help when they show up. Moreover, the health care professional must learn how the cardiopulmonary resuscitation is done. The other category of needs is the desirable need; these are needs that the patient’s life does not depend on, but the well-being of the patient depends on these needs. It is desirable for the health professional to ensure that they are up to date with information by attending an in-service program provided by their employer. The last category of needs is the possible needs; these are needs the patient needs to know, but they are not essential for their well-being (Bastable, Gramet, Jacobs & Sopczyk, 2011). After prioritization of needs, the nurse educator should determine the availability of the educational resources. The nurse educator may identify the need, but it may be useless to proceed with the need if the resource required to enhance the need is not available. It is essential that the nurse educator begin with the learning needs that resources are easily available and work on a way of having the other resources in place. For instance, a patient that has asthma needs to learn how to use an inhaler and the peak-flow meter. The educator may determine that the patient learns best if the health professional first gives a demonstration of how to use the inhaler, but the equipment may not be available. The nurse educator this case can decide to focus on the teaching the patients on the signs of the condition until the equipment are available (McDonald, 2014). The second last step in the process is assessing the demand of the organization that the nurse educator work in. Such an assessment helps the nurse educator yield information that reflects the climate of the organization. For example, the nurse educator should be aware of the performance standards required by the organization since they dictate the learning needs of both consumers and employees. The other step is time management; the nurse educator has to ensure that they allocate sufficient time to each learning need. For the reason, that time constraints are a major impediment to the assessment process, Rankin, Stallings and London (2005) note that the educator should emphasize on following important points with respect to time-management issues. Nurse educators can use several methods to assess the learner’s needs. One of the methods that are commonly used is questionnaires. The patient, in this case, provides written responses to questions about learning needs. This method is important because it is easy to administer as the patients answer the questions administered at their pace. Moreover, this method provides more privacy than interviews; the patient can be given the questionnaire to fill without any supervision. Additionally, data from questionnaires is easy to tabulate because the questions are organized systematically. Besides, many of the learners assessed find it hard to turn down such an assessment (Joel, 2013; Kiger, 2004). Just like any other method, the use of questionnaires is associated with several limitations. To begin with, learners rate their instructional needs that may not reflect an accurate assessment. Moreover, questionnaires are time-consuming because of the length of time between conducting the assessment and planning and implementing the learning program. Furthermore, questionnaires can be technical or invasive in the questions they ask. The learners may also provide unreliable feedback that may not be helpful in identifying effective learning needs. The other limitation is that the responses are not consistent across several patients that suffer from the same condition. Additionally, the final judgment of the learning need will depend on the nurse educator rather than the patient. For example, patients that suffer from asthma may offer different responses but the learning need will be dependent in the nurse educator (Stacey, Felton & Bonham, 2012). There are several things can be done to improve the use of the questionnaire in future. The questionnaire should be designed in such a way that it has a simple layout. Moreover, the nurse educators can offer come incentives to the patients to ensure that they answer the questions effectively. The questionnaires should also be piloted and tested efficiently before they are put into use. Furthermore, the patients should be made to feel that they are stakeholders in the whole process of learning needs assessment (Jaykaran, 2011). Conclusion To conclude, a needs an assessment of learning is an important process for any nurse educators. The paper has not only defined the concept of a needs assessment of learning but also identified the three types of the concept. Moreover, the paper has also looked at the idea of learning needs and needs assessment along with their goals. Moreover, the importance of educational needs assessment to nurse educators has also been examined in this paper. The overall importance as established in this paper is that the nurse educators can identify the patient-specific needs and come up with efficient learning programs for the patients. The primary goal of educational needs assessment is to identify gaps in knowledge and come up with effective ways to address the gaps. The rationale of this paper was to discuss the concept of a needs assessment of learning together with educational needs assessment, and this has been done effectively. References Bastable, S. (2006). Essentials of patient education. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Bastable, S. (2008). Nurse as educator. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett. Bastable, S., Gramet, P., Jacobs, K., & Sopczyk, D. (2011). Health professional as educator. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Foreman, M., Milisen, K., & Fulmer, T. (2010). Critical care nursing of older adults. New York, NY: Springer Pub. Co. Gupta, K., Sleezer, C., & Russ-Eft, D. (2011). 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(2007). Needs assessment in public health. New York: Kluwer Academic. Rankin, S., Stallings, K., London, F., & Rankin, S. (2005). Patient education in health and illness. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Stacey, G., Felton, A., & Bonham, P. (2012). Placement learning in mental health nursing. Edinburgh: Bailliere Tindall/Elsevier. Read More