Fast Facts about Competency-Based Education in Nursing: How to Teach Competency Mastery

“Competency-based education…provides an avenue to promote institutional accountability, address employer concerns, and assist with student transfer of knowledge and skills.”

-Mary Ellen Smith Glasgow, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN
Dean and Professor
Duquesne University

The first book of its kind, this concise, step-by-step guide written for novice and experienced educators distills all the essentials every nursing instructor needs to know to implement a Competency-Based Education (CBE) curriculum, teach with competencies, and evaluate students’ mastery. Grounded in a learner-centered paradigm, CBE focuses on outcomes and skills rather than relying on time-based training. It facilitates in-depth learning that encompasses all three learning domains — cognitive, skills, and attitudes — guided by the individual pace of each student.

Fast Facts about Competency-Based Education in Nursing addresses the theory and practical knowledge needed to teach using CBE. Beginning with how to create competencies that align with student learning outcomes, subsequent chapters show how to integrate them into a new or existing nursing curricula. Next, this quick reference shows how to evaluate and assess students using CBE. Finally, it presents how to implement a system of quality improvement to continuously ensure the competencies produce safe, skilled nurses. Brimming with useful tips based on the authors’ extensive experience and abundant practical examples, this is an incomparable reference for any educator seeking superior, more qualitative student assessment and outcomes.

Key Features:

• Demonstrates in detail how to implement CBE and assess students using CBE
• Illustrates how to integrate CBE into curriculum using an organizing framework
• Shares expert teaching/learning tips through Evidence-Based Teaching Boxes
• Helps educators to develop teaching objectives and real-world application processes
• Describes specific competency-based education curricula
• Examines how different learning styles thrive in a CBE learning environment
• Offers separate chapters for using CBE with BSN, MSN, and DNP students

Karen K. Gittings, DNP, RN, CNE, CNEcl, Alumnus CCRN, is a Professor of Nursing and Dean of the School of Health Sciences at Francis Marion University, Florence, South Carolina. Dr. Gittings received her diploma in nursing from The Washington Hospital School of Nursing, Washington, Pennsylvania and her BSN from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County campus. She earned her MSN with a specialization in nursing education and her DNP at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was a 2015 to 2016 Amy V. Cockcroft Fellow, achieved certification in online instruction in 2011, became a certified nurse educator (CNE) in 2013, and earned certification as an academic clinical nurse educator (CNEcl) with the inaugural group of test-takers. Dr. Gittings has extensive experience in critical care nursing and has been a certified critical-care RN (CCRN) since 1991.

Ruth A. Wittmann-Price, PHD, RN, CNS, CNE, CHSE, CNEcl, ANEF, FAAN, is the Dean of the W. Cary Edwards School of Nursing and Health Professions at Thomas Edison State University in Trenton, New Jersey. Ruth received her BSN degree from Felician College in Lodi, New Jersey; her master’s from Columbia University, New York City; and completed her PhD in nursing at Widener University, Chester, Pennsylvania. Dr. Wittmann-Price’s PhD received the Dean’s Award for Excellence. Ruth developed a mid-range nursing theory entitled “Emancipated Decision-Making (EDM) in Women’s Health Care” and has tested her theory in four studies.