Korean Undergraduate Nursing Education: Current Status and Developmental Strategies as Perceived by Nursing Educators and Nurses

Purpose: The aims of this study are to identify current problems of nursing education as perceived by nursing educators and nurses, and to suggest developmental strategies for effective undergraduate nursing education in Korea. Methods: This study is a descriptive study to investigate how nursing education is perceived by nursing educators and nurses, including the performance of core competencies, and curriculum improvement points, and gaps between the two. We surveyed 71 faculties in nursing colleges, and 282 nurses with less than three years of clinical experience in general and tertiary hospitals. Statistical analyses were conducted using descriptive statistics, independent two-sample t-test, and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). Results: According to the majority of nursing educators (91.4%), there is a necessity of curriculum reform toward an integrated curriculum based on concepts (58.9%), and the keywords for future nursing education are professionalism, leadership, and ethics. They also impressed upon the necessity of information technology as an additional field of education (73.2%). Nurses responded that the most helpful theoretical and practical subjects were adult nursing (35.5%), and simulation practicum (35.4%), respectively. Both nursing educators and nurses expressed the necessity of high-fidelity simulation. The IPA results showed that performance was low compared to importance in all items. The statistically significant gaps between nursing educators and nurses were core knowledge and technical skill. Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, future undergraduate nursing education should consider a concept-based curriculum, field-oriented clinical practice, learner-centered education, competency-based curriculum, information technology education, and inter-professional education to respond preemptively to future healthcare environments.