1.
Movement to Competency- Based Education in Nursing
Competency in psychomotor skills continues to be important in the twenty-first century. However, over time, the roles and responsibilities of the nurse expanded to 1) require integration of principles of science and art into the practice of nursing, 2) application of theories and models to guide the assessment, planning, interventions, and evaluation of a healthcare problem, and 3) the impact of the environment on concepts, traditions, policies, and relationships that are a part of care delivery. As the healthcare environment grew exponentially, nursing stakeholders increasingly expected all students at the time of their graduation to demonstrate the ability not only “to know” but also “to do” based on current knowledge. (AACN, 2021) These expectations led nurse educators and other nurse leaders to move toward the idea of a competency-based approach to nursing education.
2.
Definitions of Competency Competency is a complex concept, and it is essential to establish clear definitions to help students and nurse educators build and navigate a framework to develop competencies. The table below provides some of those definitions.
Table A: Definition of Terms
CONCEPT
DEFINITION
Competent
Having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully according to some approved standard.
Competency (ies)
An important skill that is needed to do a job.
As nurse educators consider strategies to ensure graduating students have the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes to enter the nursing workforce, the definitions below from Benner’s “From Novice to Expert” model
provide a framework for evaluating competence. Table B: Benner’s Stages of Nursing Competence
STAGE
DEFINITION
Stage I: Novice
A nursing student in the first year of clinical education. § Behavior in the clinical setting is very inflexible, with a very limited ability to predict what might happen in a particular patient situation. Nursing graduates in their first job. § They have had sufficient experience to enable them to recognize recurrent, meaningful components of a situation. They have the knowledge and the know-how, but not enough in-depth experience.
Stage 2: Advanced Beginner
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