Quality of nursing education programme in the Philippines: faculty members perspectives

A cross-sectional survey study design was used in this research. This was executed by employing a purposive-census sampling method to recruit one hundred and eighty-five (185) faculty instructors in fifteen (15) higher educational institutions. The use of Purposive sampling was based on the belief that the researcher’s knowledge about the population can be used to hand-pick respondents [17] and in this case HEIs. This approach did not necessarily mean HEIs known to the researcher were selected but those who met the criteria of inclusion were used for the study. Census sampling, on the other hand, is the process of taking the total population of the locale and retrieving an adequate number of respondents (faculty) as a sample of the study. The use of the two approaches complimented each other for the recruitment of the HEIs and study respondents Questionnaires centred on the aim and study objectives of the study were self-administered after the consent of participants was sought. The study was carried out with the period of January 1 – June 30, 2017.

The study was conducted in fifteen (15) private-owned higher educational institutions in the National Capital Region (NCR) of the Philippines. Ten out of fifteen of these higher educational institutions had existed for more than 45 years whilst the rest had been in existence for less than 45 years. Although 7 of these institutions were granted autonomous by a regulating body called CHED, 8 of them were still monitored by the same regulatory agency. Also, 12 of these institutions were owned by private non-sectarian organizations, however, 3 were owned by private sectarian establishments. The central government seat is in the National Capital Region and the city holds the highest number of higher education institutions which comprises those offering nursing education programme. Majority of these institutions offer health-related programmes at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, however, the study concentrated on the nursing education programme at the undergraduate level.

An initial number of all twenty-two (22) recognized higher national institutions owned by private entities in the NCR were contacted to take part in the study, yet, a considerable number of fifteen (15) institutions approved for their school and faculty members to partake in the study. The number of faculty in the twenty-two (22) higher national institutions targeted for the study summed up to two hundred and twenty (220), nonetheless, one hundred and eighty-five (185) faculty members consisting of deans, program coordinators, and faculty instructors on full and part-time contracts consented and were recruited into the study. The made the study achieve a response rate of 84.1%.

All teaching and clinical instructors who have spent more than 1 year in their educational institution were recruited to partake in the study.

All other instructors who had not completed 12 months in their educational institutions were not allowed to be part of the study.

A questionnaire was specifically developed to undertake this study. In doing so, three areas were considered in the design of a close-ended questionnaire used for the study. These were; 1) aim and objectives of study 2) policies and standards of nursing schools in the Philippines and 3) World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on quality assurance and accreditation of nursing and midwifery educational institutions in the South-East Asian countries. A four (4) Likert scale with standard questions were used to evaluate the quality of nursing education programme. The criteria for the assessment of the quality of nursing education programme included mission/vision/goals/objectives, curriculum and instruction, administration of nursing education, faculty development programme, physical structure and equipment, student services, admission of students and quality assurance system. Pretesting of the questionnaire was done in one of the accredited colleges of nursing in NCR with nineteen (19) respondents to measure the reliability of the tool before it was employed for the study. In doing so, the questionnaire was subjected to Cronbach’s alpha reliability test to determine its consistency and validity. The overall result showed .989 indicating a high consistency and reliability.

A majority, 73 (39.0%) of the 185 participants that partook in the study had 1–5 years’ clinical experience whilst few, 15 (8.0%) had 16–20 years of clinical experience. Almost half, 85 (46.0%) of respondents had taught for 6–10 years nonetheless a small number, 14 (8.0%) had 16–20 years of teaching experience. A little below two-thirds, 121 (65.0%) were doing both clinical and classroom teaching whereas very few, 8 (4.0%) were deans of the nursing department in their institutions (Table 1).

At the end of the assessment of the nursing education programme, an average of the grand weighted mean of 3.84 resulted, which means participants strongly agreed that nursing programme is of good quality. However, administrators who were faculty members rated the quality of nursing education programme higher with a mean of 3.88 compared to a mean of 3.81 by faculty who were only instructors. The quality of the mission/vision/goals/objectives of the nursing education programme was appraised highest with a mean of 3.91 while the least valued was the admission of students with a mean of 3.76 (Table 2).

Significant differences existed in the quality of mission/vision/goals/objectives (p-value = 0.008), curriculum and instruction (p-value = 0.038), administration of nursing programme (p-value = 0.025), faculty development programme (p-value = 0.003), physical structure and equipment (p-value = 0.016), student services (p-value = 0.017), admission of students (p-value = 0.010) and quality assurance system (p-value = 0.009) in relation to teaching experience of faculty members. On the contrary, the quality of mission/vision/goals/objectives, curriculum and instruction, administration of nursing education, faculty development programme, physical structure and equipment, student services, admission of students and quality assurance system did not differ significantly with regards to clinical experience and job category of faculty instructors (Table 3).

Although Likert scale was used by study participants to measure quality of nursing education programme in all the criteria in the quality matrix used in this study, respondents may have been biased in the answering of questions concerning nursing education programme using this scale where they intentionally avoid extreme answers and choose options that are expected than the real situation the study sought to find.