Part 1. Undergraduate nursing evidence-based practice education: envisioning the role of students

Abstract

Nursing educators have embraced the integration of evidence-based practice (EBP) into the nursing education curriculum in numerous ways. As this review of the nursing pedagogy literature demonstrates, most of these approaches built upon long-standing commitments to helping students understand the scientific research process, think critically, and develop the information literacy skills that will enable them to find the evidence that can inform their practice. Many reports in the nursing pedagogy literature recounted various strategies used to teach EBP to nursing students. Another category of nursing pedagogy articles discussed ways that EBP education can be suffused throughout the nursing school curriculum. Few educators, however, have envisioned students as having a role beyond that of the mere recipients of EBP education. Nonetheless, a small but growing number of nurse educators have begun to envision students as enablers of practice change in clinical settings. These innovators advocate a pedagogical paradigm that places students into socially meaningful partnerships with practicing nurses as a means to promote the uptake of EBP in clinical settings.