To Understand the Process of Theory and Practice Gap in Nursing Education in Iran

Abstract

Background: The predominant form of nursing education in Iran is university-based education. BSc, MSc, and PhD are the nursing programmes in Iran. The teaching method in Iran is very formal and nursing students obtain much theoretical information that they do not utilize it in practice settings. The system of nursing education in Iran involves a lot of exams and memorization, but students often forget the information after the exam. Thus, nursing students are not very satisfied with this kind of education. In contrast, there is not any professional relationship between practical settings and academic centers, and no major changes in the structure of nursing education were made in response to acceleration of university-based programme. In addition, it is worth mentioning that the dominant form of nursing care in the practical settings is the traditional form, and the practice experience is not integrated with the theoretical content presented in the school blocks of study. In fact, in the four years program of nursing education for getting BSc, there is need to study input, process, context, and output of educational process in order to reach a suitable model according to realities of Iran society health needs. Method: Using Grounded theory, this study is doing. The aim of this study is exploring the processes of theory-practice gap in nursing education in Iran at baccalaureate degree in order to reach a tentative theory about this gap. The phrase "grounded theory" refers to theory that is developed inductively from a corpus of data. If done well, this means that the resulting theory at least fits one dataset perfectly. Questions are included: Where is the gap between theory and practice, and which attempts should be made to bridge it? Samples are: nurse educators, nursing students, clinical nurses, and nurse administrators. The basic idea of the grounded theory approach is to read (and re-read) a textual database (such as a corpus of field notes) and "discover" or label variables (called categories, concepts and properties) and their interrelationships. The ability to perceive variables and relationships is termed "theoretical sensitivity" and is affected by a number of things including one’s reading of the literature and one’s use of techniques designed to enhance sensitivity. For covering this aims, constant comparison method throughout the open, axial, and selective coding of study has been applied. Strauss and Corbin method of coding is applying in this study. Finding: This study is in the early of its stage, and accordingly, the researcher is studying the nursing education context in UK (at Sheffield University). The early findings in UK are indicating that working based on local needs is the most important agent in nursing education. Conclusion: Getting to an appropriate educational model in nursing education needs a dynamic approach for realizing the realities, and practicing the attained model or theory based on local requirements. Accordingly, doing equivalent study for receiving a fitting model is an obvious need.