Are We 'In-Control' of Statistically Preparing Nursing Students for Their Dissertations?

• Activity Number: 451
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 6, 2014 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Teaching of Statistics in the Health Sciences
• Author(s): Myoung-Jin Kim*+
• Companies: Illinois State University
• Keywords: Statistical literacy ; Nursing ; dissertation preparation ; Statistics education ; Attitude

Abstract

Knowledge of statistics is essential for the nurse scientist. While most of graduate programs in nursing require statistics courses in the curriculum, many students seem to miss big ideas in statistics and fail to be able to apply statistical training in their dissertation. Incongruously, little is known about the state of the science of statistics education in the nursing field. The primary objective of this presentation is to raise awareness about current state of statistics education to prepare competent nurse scientist. The presenter will summarize the personal experience of teaching statistics and preparing graduate nursing students for their dissertation at his institutions and open discussion for richer sharing of issues and ideas in better preparing graduate nursing students to become competent nurse scientists. The ideas put forward are a scan of the current state in which students develop statistical literacy in preparing for their dissertation. It is hoped that the discussion on emergent themes, principles and trends will be used to begin the development of a body of knowledge available to students, educators, and professionals working with statistics education.