Abstract
Aims
This study aimed to compare the findings of the quality of nursing doctoral education survey across seven countries and discuss the strategic directions for improving quality.
Background
No comparative evaluation of global quality of nursing doctoral education has been reported to date despite the rapid increase in the number of nursing doctoral programmes.
Design
A descriptive, cross‐country, comparative design was employed.
Methods
Data were collected from 2007–2010 from nursing schools in seven countries: Australia, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Thailand, UK and USA . An online questionnaire was used to evaluate quality of nursing doctoral education except for Japan, where a paper version was used. Korea and South Africa used e‐mails quality of nursing doctoral education was evaluated using four domains: Programme, Faculty (referring to academic staff), Resource and Evaluation. Descriptive statistics, correlational and ordinal logistic regression were employed.
Results
A total of 105 deans/schools, 414 faculty and 1149 students/graduates participated. The perceptions of faculty and students/graduates about the quality of nursing doctoral education across the seven countries were mostly favourable on all four domains. The faculty domain score had the largest estimated coefficient for relative importance. As the overall quality level of doctoral education rose from fair to good, the resource domain showed an increased effect.
Conclusions
Both faculty and students/graduates groups rated the overall quality of nursing doctoral education favourably. The faculty domain had the greatest importance for quality, followed by the programme domain. However, the importance of the resource domain gained significance as the overall quality of nursing doctoral education increased, indicating the needs for more attention to resources if the quality of nursing doctoral education is to improve.
This study aimed to compare the findings of the quality of nursing doctoral education survey across seven countries and discuss the strategic directions for improving quality.
Background
No comparative evaluation of global quality of nursing doctoral education has been reported to date despite the rapid increase in the number of nursing doctoral programmes.
Design
A descriptive, cross‐country, comparative design was employed.
Methods
Data were collected from 2007–2010 from nursing schools in seven countries: Australia, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Thailand, UK and USA . An online questionnaire was used to evaluate quality of nursing doctoral education except for Japan, where a paper version was used. Korea and South Africa used e‐mails quality of nursing doctoral education was evaluated using four domains: Programme, Faculty (referring to academic staff), Resource and Evaluation. Descriptive statistics, correlational and ordinal logistic regression were employed.
Results
A total of 105 deans/schools, 414 faculty and 1149 students/graduates participated. The perceptions of faculty and students/graduates about the quality of nursing doctoral education across the seven countries were mostly favourable on all four domains. The faculty domain score had the largest estimated coefficient for relative importance. As the overall quality level of doctoral education rose from fair to good, the resource domain showed an increased effect.
Conclusions
Both faculty and students/graduates groups rated the overall quality of nursing doctoral education favourably. The faculty domain had the greatest importance for quality, followed by the programme domain. However, the importance of the resource domain gained significance as the overall quality of nursing doctoral education increased, indicating the needs for more attention to resources if the quality of nursing doctoral education is to improve.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1098-1109 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Journal of Advanced Nursing |
| Volume | 71 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Early online date | 28 Jan 2015 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - 31 May 2015 |
Keywords
- doctoral education
- evaluation
- faculty
- global
- nursing education
- PhD
- postgraduate study
- quality
- students/graduates
