The Competence-Based Curriculum in Nursing Education: A Guarantee for Nurse Student Critical Thinking Development

Abstract

A critical literature review on nursing standards of practice reveals that critical thinking is crucial for professional nursing. But from the researcher experience and observations, practising nurses in Cameroon don’t show enough evidence in the mastery of such a fundamental dimension of nursing, although Cameroon has experienced the university nursing education since 2000. Today, Bachelors, Masters, and PhDs are trained in Cameroon universities. A glance on the nursing records in many hospitals, when they exist, shows usually only biological parameters, dressings and drug treatments. Practising nurses seem to limit themselves to the application of medical prescriptions. In some hospitals, it is still scarce to find a nursing file to document nursing interventions, nor is there a nursing care plan. This is why the objective of this article is to suggest a model of curriculum design that can foster critical thinking for nurse students during their training and, once in the field they can meet the international standards. To attain this objective the researcher critically reviewed the history of nursing curriculum and some concepts like curriculum and competence. From a theorical analysis the researcher found that competence-based curriculum in nursing education is the guarantee of nurse student critical thinking development. The competence-based curriculum in nursing education relies on principles of curriculum content organisation as suggested by Ornstein and Hunkins (1988) with two basic dimensions: the horizontal and vertical dimensions. It also relies on the implications of the elaboration theory as proposed by Reigeluth (1979), with its seven components: sequencing, organisation, summary, synthesis, analogy, cognitive strategy activation and learner control.