NUR 645 Module 2 Needs Assessment Paper Example

Before Changing Anything: A Needs Assessment and Frame Factor Analysis for a Baccalaureate Curriculum Revision

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

NUR 645: Curriculum Design in Nursing

Module Two Needs Assessment Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Before Changing Anything: A Needs Assessment and Frame Factor Analysis for a Baccalaureate Curriculum Revision

Curriculum revisions often begin with a solution. A faculty member returns from a conference excited about concept-based teaching, or an accreditation visit prompts a rush to rewrite outcomes. Without evidence of what graduates actually need and what the program can realistically deliver, a revision can solve the wrong problem or create new ones. Cedar Valley University School of Nursing, a composite baccalaureate program admitting 80 students a year, is considering a revision. Faculty believe graduates are weak in population health and clinical judgment, but that belief rests on anecdotes. This paper presents a needs assessment conducted before any design decisions. It argues that systematic evidence from multiple stakeholders, combined with an honest analysis of frame factors, should determine what the revision addresses and what it leaves alone.

A Framework for the Assessment

Thomas et al. (2016) describe a six-step approach to curriculum development that begins with problem identification and a general needs assessment, which examines the gap between current and ideal performance in the wider field, followed by a targeted needs assessment, which examines the specific learners and learning environment. Only after these steps do goals, strategies, implementation and evaluation follow. The approach was developed for medical education but applies well to nursing because it insists that each later step be justified by what the first two reveal. Keating and DeBoor (2018) add the concept of frame factors: the external and internal conditions, such as community needs, regulation, finances, faculty and facilities, that shape what any curriculum can achieve. Together these frameworks structure this assessment.

General Needs: The Wider Field

The general needs assessment asked what the nursing workforce of the next decade will need. The national consensus study on nursing for 2020 to 2030 calls for graduates who can act on the social conditions that drive illness and who see equity as part of their work, and for schools to build community-based learning and teaching on structural causes of poor health into their programs (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2021). The 2021 AACN Essentials, which the program must align with, shift nursing education toward competencies across ten domains, including population health. Regionally, the county served by Cedar Valley has a diabetes prevalence above the state average, a growing population over 65 and two rural hospitals that have closed obstetric units in the past five years. These sources point to population health, chronic disease management and care in community settings as growing needs.

Targeted Needs: Our Graduates and Students

Table 1 summarizes the targeted assessment. The findings partly confirm and partly challenge faculty assumptions. Employers and licensure data support concerns about clinical judgment, particularly recognizing and responding to deterioration. Population health emerged as a gap from graduates and the document review, but students located the problem in the isolation of the community course rather than in a lack of content. The content review revealed something faculty had not expected: substantial repetition, with diabetes taught in five courses, often at the same level, which contributes to the overload students described.

Table 1. Targeted Needs Assessment Sources and Findings

Note. Multiple sources were used so that no single perspective, including that of faculty, defines the problem.

Frame Factors

External frame factors include the regional health profile described above, the state board of nursing requirements for clinical hours, the accreditation expectation to align with the 2021 Essentials, and the clinical placement market, in which three nursing programs compete for limited medical-surgical and obstetric sites. Two clinical partners have offered community and ambulatory placements, which could ease this pressure. Internal frame factors include a mission that emphasizes service to rural communities, a faculty of 18 in which only two have community health expertise, a simulation center that is underused on weekends and a budget with no new faculty lines for two years. Students are older than average, and 40% work more than twenty hours a week, which limits scheduling flexibility.

These factors narrow the options. A revision that requires new faculty positions is not feasible, but one that uses community placements and the simulation center, and that develops current faculty in population health, is. The rural mission supports strengthening population health, which gives the revision an internal justification beyond accreditation.

Prioritized Needs

The assessment identifies four needs in priority order. First, strengthen recognition of and response to patient deterioration across clinical courses, supported by employer, licensure and graduate data. Second, integrate population health across the curriculum rather than confining it to one course, supported by national reports, graduate data and student focus groups. Third, reduce content repetition, beginning with chronic disease topics, to make room for application. Fourth, develop faculty expertise in population health. Needs that were not supported by evidence, such as a proposal to add a separate informatics course, were set aside for future review.

Limitations

The graduate survey response rate was 45%, and graduates who felt unprepared may have been more or less likely to respond. Employer interviews involved nine managers from three hospitals, all acute care settings, so community employers were not represented. Licensure results reflect many factors beyond the curriculum. These limitations will be addressed by adding interviews with community health employers and by repeating the graduate survey after the revision.

Conclusion

The needs assessment confirmed some faculty beliefs, challenged others and uncovered a problem no one had named. Following the first steps of the six-step approach and analyzing frame factors gives Cedar Valley a revision agenda grounded in evidence: strengthen clinical judgment, integrate population health, reduce repetition and develop faculty, all within the program's real constraints.

References

Keating, S. B., & DeBoor, S. S. (Eds.). (2018). Curriculum development and evaluation in nursing education (4th ed.). Springer Publishing.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2021). The future of nursing 2020-2030: Charting a path to achieve health equity. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25982

Thomas, P. A., Kern, D. E., Hughes, M. T., & Chen, B. Y. (Eds.). (2016). Curriculum development for medical education: A six-step approach (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press.