NURS 8542 Week 5 Curriculum Map Paper Example

Introduced Four Times, Demonstrated Nowhere: A Curriculum Map of Six Outcomes Across Nine Required Courses, and the Three Structural Faults It Reveals

Student Name

College of Nursing, Walden University

NURS 8542: Curriculum Change: Applying Research Strategies to Prepare Tomorrow's Nursing Education Programs

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Introduced Four Times, Demonstrated Nowhere: A Curriculum Map of Six Outcomes Across Nine Required Courses, and the Three Structural Faults It Reveals

Method

A program map is quick to draw and hard to read. This map places the six end-of-program outcomes of a composite prelicensure baccalaureate program down the side and its nine required nursing courses across the top. Each cell is coded I, R or D: introduced, reinforced or demonstrated, where demonstrated means a graded task in which students must show the outcome at the level expected of a graduate. Every code is evidenced by a named assignment, exam or clinical evaluation item, not by a syllabus description. Curriculum mapping is meant to make the relationships among planned outcomes and actual teaching visible (Harden, 2001), and in program assessment it is used to find outcomes that are over- or under-addressed (Plaza et al., 2007). Codes were assigned from syllabi and graded tasks for the most recent academic year and checked with each course coordinator.

The Map

Table 1 shows the map. Courses are Fundamentals (210), Health Assessment (220), Pharmacology (230), Medical-Surgical I (310), Mental Health (320), Maternal-Child (330), Medical-Surgical II (410), Community (420) and Leadership and Senior Practicum (450). A dash means the outcome is not addressed.

Table 1

Curriculum Map: Program Outcomes by Required Course

Codes were verified against graded tasks; the evidence for each code is listed in an appendix to the map.

Reading the Map

Read row by row, the map shows whether each outcome follows a path from introduction through reinforcement to demonstration. Outcomes 1, 2, 3 and 6 do, though with some unevenness. Outcomes 4 and 5 do not. Read column by column, the map shows how much each course carries. The senior practicum, 450, is the only course where three outcomes are demonstrated, which makes it the program's main point of proof and also its main point of risk.

Fault 1: An Outcome Introduced Four Times and Demonstrated Nowhere

Outcome 5, management of care, including prioritization and delegation, is coded I in four courses: Fundamentals, Medical-Surgical I, Medical-Surgical II and Community. It is never reinforced as a building step, and it is never demonstrated. The evidence explains why. In each of the four courses, the graded task is a knowledge item: a quiz or exam question on prioritization frameworks, or a short case in which students rank patients on paper. None asks students to manage more than two patients in practice. The senior practicum syllabus lists multi-patient management, but the practicum evaluation tool has no item for it, and the earlier gap analysis found that clinical partners limit students to two patients.

This fault matters because it is the outcome the program's data show slipping, especially for transfer students, and because the licensure exam's clinical judgment model includes prioritizing among patients' needs (Dickison et al., 2019). The map shows that the program keeps re-introducing a skill it never requires students to perform.

Fault 2: An Outcome With No Demonstration Point

Outcome 4, interprofessional collaboration, is introduced in Medical-Surgical I and reinforced in Medical-Surgical II, and then disappears. No course asks students to demonstrate it. The AACN Essentials treat interprofessional partnership as one of ten domains of competency for entry-level practice (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2021), so an outcome that is never demonstrated leaves the program unable to show that graduates meet it.

Fault 3: Proof Concentrated in One Course

Three of the six outcomes are demonstrated only or mainly in the senior practicum. If a student's practicum placement is weak, or if a partner's policy limits what students can do, as the gap analysis found, the program has no second opportunity to demonstrate those outcomes. Medical-Surgical II demonstrates two outcomes, which provides some redundancy for clinical judgment and safety, but none for professionalism or management of care.

Checks on the Map Itself

A map is only as good as its codes, so three checks were made before interpreting it. First, each code was traced to a graded task in the current syllabus and gradebook; four codes that course descriptions had implied, including a D for professionalism in Mental Health, were downgraded because no graded task supported them. Second, each course coordinator reviewed the row and column for their course and could challenge a code with evidence; two challenges were accepted and one was not. Third, a second faculty member independently coded three courses, and the two coders agreed on all but two cells, both resolved by returning to the graded task.

The checks matter because maps built from syllabus language tend to overstate coverage. Course descriptions often promise more than graded tasks require, and a map that trusts them will show outcomes as demonstrated when students are never asked to show them. Coding from graded work makes the map more conservative and, for the program's purposes, more useful, since the faults it reveals are real gaps in what students must do rather than gaps in how courses describe themselves.

The map covers only required nursing courses. Prerequisites, electives and general education courses may address some outcomes, particularly professionalism and communication, but they were excluded because the program cannot verify their graded tasks. A later version could add them where syllabi and assignments are available.

What the Map Implies for Revision

The map points to three changes. Outcome 5 needs a demonstration point, most practically a graded multi-patient assignment in Medical-Surgical II or a capstone simulation, and its four introductions could be consolidated into one introduction and two reinforcements. Outcome 4 needs at least one demonstrated task, such as an interprofessional simulation with graded communication. And the program should add a second demonstration point for outcomes now proven only in the practicum. Iwasiw et al. (2020) note that curriculum revision should follow from evidence about the existing curriculum, and the map provides that evidence in a form a committee can check cell by cell.

References

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2021). The Essentials: Core competencies for professional nursing education.

Dickison, P., Haerling, K. A., & Lasater, K. (2019). Integrating the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Clinical Judgment Model into nursing educational frameworks. Journal of Nursing Education, 58(2), 72-78. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20190122-03

Harden, R. M. (2001). AMEE Guide No. 21: Curriculum mapping: A tool for transparent and authentic teaching and learning. Medical Teacher, 23(2), 123-137. https://doi.org/10.1080/01421590120036547

Iwasiw, C. L., Andrusyszyn, M.-A., & Goldenberg, D. (2020). Curriculum development in nursing education (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Plaza, C. M., Draugalis, J. R., Slack, M. K., Skrepnek, G. H., & Sauer, K. A. (2007). Curriculum mapping in program assessment and evaluation. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 71(2), Article 20. https://doi.org/10.5688/aj710220