NLN Core Competencies for Nurse Educators: Are They Present in the Course Descriptions of Academic Nurse Educator Programs?

As an initial approach to determining representation of the NLN Core Competencies for Nurse Educators in Master's of Science in Nursing Education and Post-Master's Certificate programs, the study identified the presence of the competencies in course descriptions.The competencies are the gold standard to ensure academic nurse educators have the knowledge and skill to teach, assist learners, develop curricula, and implement effective evaluation methods.A descriptive design that applied web scraping techniques was used to collect data from school web pages, including course descriptions, credit hours, practica information, distance accessibility, and Certified Nurse Educator exam preparation.Four competencies were well represented (≥85 percent), and four competencies were poorly represented (<50 percent) in a sample of 529 schools.Programs should review courses and course descriptions for inclusion of all competency areas that prepare nurse educators and make revisions to address poorly represented competencies.