Learning bioscience in nursing education: perceptions of the intended and the prescribed curriculum

This study used a curriculum inquiry framework to investigate the perceptions of 184 nursing students and nurse educators in relation to bioscience in the nursing curriculum. These participants’ attitudes to science and bioscience, self‐efficacy in bioscience and perceptions of bioscience were investigated using scales based on previous research. Nursing students were found to have significantly more positive attitudes to bioscience in nursing education than nurse educators, and nurse educators were not found to have significantly better self‐efficacy in bioscience than the students, although this might have been expected. The results of focus group discussions, used to investigate this in more depth, suggested that some nurse educators and clinical preceptors may not have sufficient science background or bioscience knowledge, to help nursing students apply bioscience knowledge to practice. As a result of this, it is suggested that the aims of the intended and prescribed nursing curricula are not being fulfilled in the implemented curriculum. Because of the increasing acuity of illness in hospitals, the fact that nurses are becoming more autonomous in their practice and the increasing expectation that nurses, in some cases, will be able to prescribe as well as administer medications, bioscience knowledge is becoming even more important. The teaching of bioscience and its application to clinical practice needs to improve if nurses are to be credible members of the multi‐disciplinary team.