Nurse education: learner-centred or teacher-centred?

Abstract

Although the characteristics of an ideal 'ward learning climate' have been well documented, nurse educationalists have devoted less attention to the learning climate in schools of nursing. Several commentators have noted the profession's failure to treat students of nursing as adult learners. The contrasts between learner-centred and teacher-centred approaches are explored in the context of differing ideologies of education. Major themes from adult education such as self-directed learning, student-centred learning and andragogy, are discussed in relation to learner-centred education. Teacher-centred learning, implicit in many schools of nursing, stressing a role-based, asymmetrical power relationship between teacher and student, provides a poor role model for empathic nurse-patient interactions. Its emphasis on treating nursing students as a passive homogeneous group conflicts with the philosophy of individualisation inherent in the nursing process. The consequences for nursing of maintaining a teacher-centred approach to learning include failure to develop critical thinking, in its students research mindedness and a positive attitude to change and a self-directed attitude to continuing education.