NURS FPX 6108 Assessment 3 Curriculum Theory, Frameworks, and Models
NURS FPX 6108 Assessment 3 Curriculum Theory, Frameworks, and Models Student Name Capella University NURS-FPX6108 Curriculum Overview: Design, Develop and Evaluate Professor Name Submission Date Curriculum Theory, Frameworks, and Models The establishment of an effective nursing curriculum relies on solid theoretical foundations and designing organizing principles. The theoretical base will impact the order in which the knowledge will be presented in nursing curricula as well as on the manner in which it will be taught and evaluated. The University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing’s B.S. Program is a competency-based curriculum based on the AACN (2021) Essentials framework. As per the statements of Kumar & Rewari. According to Kumar & Rewari (2022), the inclusion of institutional missions and learner needs in curriculum design is a must. This article describes the organizing, theoretical, and conceptual design of the Pitt BSN curriculum. Description of the Selected Health Care Curriculum The context of the institution and the community served by a program informs a description of a nursing curriculum. For instance, the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing has been offering baccalaureate education in nursing since 1939 and is one of the oldest nursing schools in the United States (University of Pittsburgh, 2024). It is within the Victoria Building in Pittsburgh, PA, and has a partnership with UPMC where students can receive a broad spectrum of clinical education. As a result, the rich academic resources in research-active faculty members and many different ways in which to experience real-world clinical practice make this institution and program particularly well suited for preparing nurses. The Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree program is a complete program in nursing leading to the award of the baccalaureate degree. The program is an opportunity for nurses from all healthcare work settings. Traditional high school graduates admitted to the program and transfer students from other universities will be the target audience (University of Pittsburgh, 2024). A nursing student will complete more than 1,200 hours of supervised clinical practice in hospitals, clinics, and the community (University of Pittsburgh, 2024). Research has shown that valuable and experience-based learning opportunities during clinical education have better prepared students to develop nursing competency than those with lower numbers of clinical education opportunities during their nursing training (Beiranvand et al., 2022). Fundamental Organizing Design and Theoretical Framework By determining the structure of a curriculum, it is possible to better understand how learning experiences are built to develop a nurse’s ability as a nurse. The major organizing structure for the Pitt BSN program is a professional nursing competency model derived from that outlined in The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing (2021) by the AACN. It leads to all courses, assessments, and clinical experiences being consistent with measurable professional competencies (AACN, 2021). Programs in the health professions where students must learn certain skills are thought to be best suited to competency-based education (CBE). Nursing in particular needs the skills to be verifiable and standardized upon program completion; therefore, it should be designed as a competency-based program at Pitt. In addition to that, CBE frameworks facilitate nursing graduates’ clinical readiness as well as reduce the time spent in acquiring competency in the hospital environment (Mani, 2025). Ten domains were established in the AACN Essentials (2021), including the domains of person-centered care, population health, interprofessional collaboration, and informatics, which are all consistent with the requirements of the Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing and national NCLEX-RN exam. Simple-to-Complex Curriculum Sequencing Both a competency-based design and a simple-to-complex design over four years of academic study are utilized throughout the Pitt BSN program. This program is designed so as to increasingly build upon its core sciences and health assessment content in years one and two, with multi-systems of clinical practice building on those foundations in years three and four. They describe this as a staged progression to build learners’ confidence as they tackle increasingly higher cognitive and/or clinical demands (Faber et al., 2024). The staged design is very appropriate for a program that leads into the nursing realm and is quite challenging in both its level of difficulty and the entry points it provides. History and Major Concepts of the Organizing Design and Theoretical Framework Knowing the evolution of CBE from the 1970s helps better understand the reason that CBE is prevalent today in designing nursing degree programs. CBE emerged in health professions education in the 1970’s as an attempt to address the issue of the mismatch between what was being taught in the schools and what nurses were doing on the wards. The AACN first published the Essentials of Baccalaureate Education in 1986 as formalized competency-based expectations for all nursing schools, and in 2021 the AACN offered the Essentials in its updated format to be the standard for all practice environments. The historical evolution of Competency-Based Education (CBE) is relevant to the nursing profession reacting to a rapidly changing healthcare environment with more complex and technology-based care. The changes to CBE in 2021 were made based on national workforce data that indicated there was a gap in how prepared new graduates are to participate in interprofessional care, to use data for the provision of care, and to provide population-based care (AACN, 2021). It is important to consider the historical context of this, as, recently, the Pitt BSN Program has undergone changes to its BSN curriculum to better fit within the framework of the 2021 Essentials. There are significantly better outcomes for graduates from programs that follow the 2021 Essentials on national assessments, as noted by Qazi and Al-Mhdawi (2025). Major Concepts of the AACN Essentials Framework The AACN (2021) Essentials framework is the methodology for building professional nursing as a career for the Baccalaureate degree level; five of the ten core competency domains are: knowledge for nursing practice, patient-centered care, population health, scholarship/practice, and quality/safety (AACN, 2021). The other four domains address the following: interprofessional collaboration, system-based practice, informatics and technology, and professionalism and personal and professional leadership (AACN, 2021). These ten domains of nursing coalesce a picture of
