Addressing the Shortage of Academic Nurse Educators: Recommendations for Educational Institutions Based on Nominal Group Technique Research

This episode of NLN Nursing EDge Unscripted features guest Shellye Vardaman.  Dr. Vardaman shares insights from her study on the shortage of academic nurse educators and emphasizes the need for higher recognition of nurse educators as advanced practice nurses, as well as the importance of competitive salaries, mentorship, and pedagogical training. The conversation highlights challenges like the lack of formal training for new faculty and the barriers to attracting qualified educators, such as the salary gap between academic and clinical nursing roles. Dr. Vardaman also discusses the work of the National Consortium of Academic Nurse Educators in advocating for the profession, including their efforts to promote certifications and policy changes. Learn more about her work, “Addressing the Shortage of Academic Nurse Educators: Recommendations for Educational Institutions Based on Nominal Group Technique Research.”

Vardaman, Shellye A.; Logan, Laura; Davis, Suja P.; Sciarra, Erica; Doria, Jenneth B.; Baker, Jordan; Feeney, Sheryl; Pajarillo, Edmund J. Y.; Seibold-Simpson, Susan; Bajwa, Maria. Addressing the Shortage of Academic Nurse Educators: Recommendations for Educational Institutions Based on Nominal Group Technique Research. Nursing Education Perspectives 45(4):p 201-207, 7/8 2024. | DOI: 10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000001264

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Transcript

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[Music][Music] Welcome to this episode of NLN podcast Nursing Edge Unscripted. I'm your host, Dr Steven Palazzo,  a member of the editorial board of Nursing Education Perspectives. In this episode,  we will be discussing the factors that contribute to the shortage of academic nurse educators the  article we will be discussing is titled addressing the shortage of academic nurse educators  recommendations for educational institutions based on nominal group technique research the article  can be found in the current July August issue of Nursing Education Perspectives. The author of the  article today is joining us for this discussion Dr. Shelleye Vardaman is a professor at Troy  University School of Nursing in Troy, Alabama. Dr. Vardaman, welcome! Thank you. I'm ready for a really  spirited discussion about this topic so let's lead us off by talking about a brief overview of your  study purpose and the findings. Sure. The purpose of the study was really to provide some insight into  current issues and trends that are impacting the shortage of academic nurse educators. Specifically,  we're looking at the United States. But also we wanted to provide some solutions for educational  institutions and really look at an action plan that they could put in place to help address these  concerns. And like said, we use the nominal group technique, which some may not be as familiar with,  and that's looking at focus groups and then coming up with consensus through research discussions.  We used Zoom just like this to allow academic educators from around the country to participate.  Some of our findings include probably one of the most heated topics right now in nurse education,  the need for certified academic nurse educators to be recognized as advanced practice nurses. The  NLN has recognized nurse educators as an advanced practice, role but you know wide stream that's not  necessarily a common practice. So that was one of the things that our participants found.   We have core competencies, we have certification examinations, and we have a broad knowledge base  so nurse educators need to be recognized. Also the earnings, benefits, and workloads are not comparable  to nurses in clinical practice. There is a significant salary gap. Another finding that leads  to the issue of retention is that of orientation and mentorship of our new faculty. The study also  found the awareness of the need for funding for those who want to become academic nurse educators.  Participants in this study noted that many recent hires have no formal education or training in  pedagogy. That could be very problematic when curriculum, assessment, and evaluation matters are  being discussed. They feel somewhat out of place. That can lead to a lack of confidence. So we need  some way to help them become better educated as educators. I'll talk a little bit more about  that when we look at the actual retention of our educators. Another finding involves recruitment of  future educators. We as educators ourselves can be the best recruiters. We can identify those students  who would make great academic nurse educators. As an educator, I work alongside lots of my former  students. I'm very honored to work alongside those great educators. Many participants also noted the  fact that when you look at job applications you only see PhD or DNP as preferred qualifications. We  know that there are many other avenues that make great nurse educators but they're not listed on  those applications. We need to highlight some of those other competencies. Not every  must have a doctorate. We need to look more at those NLN core competencies for qualifications. Well as you know, we have been talking for years about salaries for nurse  educators and advanced practice recognition. Where are we at with this? Are we making any  progress? What needs to happen at the professional organizational level to make this become a reality?  What are the barriers? Sure. Let me start with the first part of that question: where are we now.  So let's look at some of the latest statistics which would be 2023. So according to the US  Bureau of Labor Statistics, the annual mean salary for all post-secondary educators was $101,750. So that's everybody teaching postsecondary. For business educators, that mean was $113,240. For those teaching biology, it was $102,270. For art, drama, and music educators it was$100,840. But for nursing educators it was$86,530 and that's 2023 data. So that's where we are currently. Where did we come from? So let's look pre-Covid, so 2018. The mean salary 2018 was$85,190. So there is a difference in that mean overall. For business educators back in 2018, their mean was $103,330, so they have increased 9.2%. Biology - it was $97,340. They've increased 4.9%. Art, drama and music - theirs was$82,560. They have increased 19.9% since 2018. For nursing educators - it was $81,350. We have increased 6.2% since 2018. So that's  where we currently are. We have increased, but only 6.2%. Look at inflation since Covid. So... So why are we so undervalued? That's a very good question. That's where we need our professional organizations, but professional organizations can only help so much. We have to advocate for ourselves. Right. We need to team together. We're only as good as our weakest link. So we're making some progress maybe marginally on the salary front. Are we making any progress on  pushing for advanced practice recognition? Well, we need to bring awareness to the role of  academic nurse educators. We need to advocate for the role and we need to emphasize the need for  nurse educators become certified. When you look at other advanced practice specialties they all have  

that thing in common: 8:22

they're certified. We have so many nurse educators that are not certified.  How can we make that argument if we don't seek the certification? So that's one thing that we  need to push for that will help to validate the expertise of the academic nurse educator. Yeah.  It'll help validate the expertise but it doesn't come with any additional salary, at least in my  experience and in talking to colleagues right, there's a recognition but there's not a  financial recognition of that expertise. And if you look in our article we talk about  the certification being part of tenure and promotion and that would be an incentive for these academic  nurse educators to become certified because it would be recognized along those tenure promotion  guidelines. Because many times they recognize the certification of say, your nurse practitioner  faculty, that's part of the criteria. They grant credit for that, which would help you  financially. For instance, most institutions give a raise for promotion. The NLN, the National  League for Nursing, has done a wonderful job in providing support and recognition for  nurse educators. Obviously they have the Certified Nurse Educator certification, as a clinician, as a  faculty member. They have the fellowship now, the Academy of Nursing Education that recognizes  outstanding contributions to nursing education. The organization is very of course  pro-nursing education and is the source of nursing education resources and support.  What can the organization do, do you think from the aspect of generating  calls to action, policy endorsement, etc., to help solidify or move forward this advanced practice  role recognition? I'm sure sure there's been some and I don't know but sure there's been  some attempt at that through the organization, but is there any coming together  any group that really is pushing this agenda forward or taking it to where it needs to go to  be listened to and to really understand what what we're asking for as advanced practice role  recognition? All the authors of this article, we're all members of the National Consortium  of Academic Nurse Educators. We came together as a group. That's how this project started and our  membership is now up around a 100 members from all over the country. This is exactly what we're  trying to do is advocate for, our role, and we are trying to disseminate our knowledge. We  have multiple groups in addition to educational institutions. We have professional organizations,  health care organizations, consumers, and policy makers. We've done nominal group techniques on  all of those different groups so we have similar papers for all of these different groups. We also  have a Delphi research project that's ongoing. We're in the analysis of that right now. So all of  our action items were in the Delphi and they've gone out to academic nurse educators, different  vested stakeholders throughout the country and our first round had nearly a thousand  participants for a Delphi. So it was a very hot topic. Yeah, it's a very hot topic. And we thank all of our  participants for that. Like I said, we are still going through the analysis so hopefully we'll  have that published in the near future, but we want to take those action items and literally put them  into action. Right. So those would be things - writing letters to our congressmen and women,  sending it out through different organizations. We've written proposals to ANA. We've  been writing statements trying to get this to the forefront. We have different people in the  organization that are standing up for their state nurses associations trying to get recognized.   It takes advocacy. We have to advocate for the role. Right. Well, we're told we're valued,  we're told we're needed that we don't have enough educators, and that's what kind of sometimes slows  the pipeline of new nurses and we may not have enough nurse educators that are educated to  the level that we need for many of our schools, but the things that would  lead to that would be of course better salary, advanced practice recognition, a tenured pathway  or some type of pathway for security. So the things that could be put in place to help recruit from  practice, from other areas of academia, aren't, right? Right. We need those pathways,  like I said, those people who have the confidence to be educators, we need pathways for  them to go back and seek post-master certificates or post-doctoral certificates, but there a cost  for that we need tuition reimbursement from their educational institutions. That would be quite  easy to help retain the faculty. Let them go back to school and get that pedagogical  training. Right. I mean, as you know, I would say a good percentage of our faculty come from  the practice setting. And we need strong clinicians, we need those. We do. We do. And yet we expect  them to be educators and come in and educate ... to understand curriculum, understand curriculum  evaluation, architecture of curriculum, assessment, all those things we're expecting them  to understand, of course they don't. Many of them because it is in itself a process of  learning and education that's very specific, how to read your test item analysis and  understand the reliability and validity of the tools that you're using. You may  not have that coming from clinical practice and so it is a very specialized area in nursing and  education that would benefit I think from being recognized in order to attract more qualified  individuals into the profession. Right, and also many of these clinicians they leave practice  thinking oh, academia is going to give me a much better work life balance, right, when in fact it  does not. It does not - correct. Because when when you leave the bedside you're leaving your patients in  the hospital or you're leaving them in the clinic and they go home, but in academia you're  answering emails all hours of the day and night. Your office does not contain your  work. Many times now it's your cell phone that contains your work. Right. And so we need to  look at flexible work that needs to be considered. Remote positions can help retain some of  these experienced senior faculty members. Some of these schools are located in very geographically  challenging areas. People may not want to live there. However, could you  get a really good faculty member who could teach remotely, something that an educational institution  needs to consider. That would be a very good way to recruit a diverse, qualified faculty member.  Mention the organization again before we end this session that you said you had 100 members that is more of an action-oriented organization and how could our listeners reach out or who  would they reach out to if they had interest in participating. Sure. It's the National Consortium  of Academic Nurse Educators and our website is www.nc-ane.org. Okay and tell me a little bit  more about the organization's mission. Sure. Our mission is to advocate for academic nurse  educators and we're doing it through advocacy and research. We have multiple publications out there.  We're presenting through multiple avenues. We've submitted several things to different conferences.  We have things submitted to NERC. We have people presenting at Sigma in Singapore in the upcoming  near future, presented at a lot of the regional research conferences. Wonderful. So you'll see our  our work around. All right, well great. Well I want to thank you for joining us of course this is a  you know a very hot topic I think still and can have many different perspectives I'm sure from  many different people, but to our listeners, if you had not have opportunity yet, please look for Dr,  Vardaman's article, "Addressing the Shortage of Academic Nurse Educators: Recommendations for Educational  Institutions Based on Nominal Group Technique Research," which can be found in the July August issue of  Nursing Education Perspectives. And again I want to thank Dr. Vardaman for joining us taking some  time out of her day to get us kind of worked up again about this topic, so thank you. Thank you.[Music]