THE PLACE OF ETHICS AS AN AREA OF STUDY IN THE CURRICULA OF SCHOOLS OF NURSING IN PENNSYLVANIA.
Contributors: University of Pittsburgh.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 117
Subjects: Education, Higher.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: In nursing, ethics as a special field of study began to expand in the 1970's. Scientific advances, technological innovations, and societal changes increased the need for ethics instruction in the professional curriculum.

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the status of ethics instruction within the undergraduate nursing curricula of accredited baccalaureate, associate degree, and diploma schools within Pennsylvania. The study proposed to answer the following questions: (1) Is ethics instruction currently included in nursing curricula? (2) At what level of the student's educational program is ethics addressed in the curriculum? Is it prerequisite content for nursing? (3) What is the ethics content? How is this content identified, taught, and evaluated? (4) Who are the faculty responsible for teaching ethics? What are their qualifications?.

The questionnaire was designed to survey all three types of nursing programs and was mailed to 81 accredited schools. The data included responses from 63 schools with a total of 102 respondents. Fifty-three deans and forty-nine faculty participated in the study. Data from the questionnaire were coded and analyzed for frequencies, percentages, and means.

The findings revealed the following: some ethics content, primarily integrated into various courses, was taught in the majority of the programs. This content was taught primarily by faculty-student discussion method, by nurses who had a high degree of interest but little advanced preparation in ethics.

Ethics content consisted of professional code of ethics and issues related to death and dying. Professional concerns were influencing factors for the selection of the content. Paper and pencil examinations were used to evaluate ethics instruction. Workshops and seminars were the resources selected as needed to prepare faculty for ethics instruction.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-05, Section: A, page: 1624.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, 1985.

School code: 0178.