We read with great interest the study by Şenyuva et al. (2025) examining stakeholder perspectives on competencies gained through postgraduate nursing education. The authors should be commended for their multi-stakeholder, qualitative design, which addresses a critical gap in systematic program evaluation. Their finding of strong alignment between expected and acquired competencies provides valuable reassurance. Building on their important contribution, we wish to propose several actionable methodological directions that could guide future research in competency-based nursing education. The authors' work highlights a recurring methodological challenge in nursing education research: how to align the philosophical framing of a study with its analytical approach in a way that maximizes practical utility. In their study, a “phenomenological approach” was stated, yet thematic analysis was employed rather than methods tied to specific phenomenological traditions (e.g., Colaizzi, Giorgi, or van Manen). We see this not as a limitation of their work, but as an opportunity to articulate clearer methodological pathways for future investigators. Classical phenomenology seeks to extract the essence of a single, shared lived experience, often from a relatively homogeneous group. By contrast, when the research goal, as in Şenyuva et al. (2025), is to produce a rich, comparative map of stakeholder perceptions across multiple distinct groups to directly inform curriculum reform, qualitative description may offer a more congruent and inherently pragmatic design (Sandelowski 2000, 2010; Colorafi and Evans 2016). To advance the field, we propose the following methodological roadmap for future researchers investigating competencies in nursing education. First, we recommend that researchers explicitly justify their methodological choice in relation to their study aim at the outset. If the primary goal is to compare perceptions across structurally distinct stakeholder groups, as Şenyuva et al. (2025) have valuably done, then qualitative description should be considered the design of first choice. This approach stays closer to the data, requires no transformation into a philosophical idiom, and yields findings that are directly translatable into educational practice (Sandelowski 2000). Conversely, if the aim is to uncover the deeper, context-independent essence of a lived experience (e.g., what it means to develop scholarly competence through postgraduate study), then future studies should adopt a specific phenomenological tradition and make the associated analytical procedures visible. This would involve documenting the use of bracketing to set aside researchers' preconceptions about “competency,” detailing a step-by-step reduction process, and ensuring a relatively homogeneous participant sample whose shared experience can be distilled into essential themes. Second, building on the comparative design model demonstrated by Şenyuva et al. (2025), we encourage future researchers to incorporate an explicit layering of descriptive and interpretive findings in their reporting. Specifically, we suggest that results sections in multi-stakeholder competency studies first present manifest, descriptive themes that capture the common competencies identified across all participant groups (the descriptive layer). Subsequently, researchers could specify whether any themes point to a deeper, context-independent essence that transcends specific stakeholder roles (the interpretive layer). This transparent delineation would help educators and curriculum developers in diverse institutional settings better assess which competencies are broadly transferable and which may be context-dependent—directly strengthening the practical applicability of findings. Third, future studies employing a phenomenological lens in competency research should consider adopting established checklists or reporting guidelines specific to that tradition (e.g., the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Phenomenological Research), thereby enhancing methodological transparency and reader confidence in the transferability of insights. We believe these recommendations extend, rather than critique, the valuable foundation established by Şenyuva et al. (2025). Their multi-stakeholder design has demonstrated the power of comparative qualitative inquiry in nursing education. By offering this methodological roadmap, we hope to support future researchers in designing studies where the philosophical stance, analytical method, and practical recommendations form a seamlessly integrated whole—ultimately advancing competency-based postgraduate nursing education in diverse global contexts. Jie Kong: conceptualization, writing – original draft. Bing Luo: conceptualization, writing – review and editing. The authors have nothing to report. This work was supported by Hebei Provincial Social Science Fund Project, HB24WH003. The authors have seen and approved the final manuscript. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
Kong et al. (Sun,) studied this question.