Judy Craft

The satellite university campus is becoming more prominent in Australia, and may consist of a large proportion of students of low socio-economic status (SES). Concurrently, there is a governmental target to increase the proportion of low SES students at university. However, there are concerns that students of low SES may be less successful at university, and accordingly, this study aimed to identify whether SES impacted on student success. Retrospective analysis was undertaken of satellite campus students to relate their SES and university entry rank to their academic results. There was no strong relationship between students' entry rank and their results, nor was there a significant effect of SES on results. This demonstrates that students of low SES, and those of lower entry ranks, were successful in their first year. These results indicate that universities can recruit low SES students to meet governmental policy, without the concerns of increased failure rates.

Background Nursing students' ability to learn, integrate and apply bioscience knowledge to their clinical practice remains a concern. Objectives To evaluate the implementation, influence, and student perspective of a team-teaching workshop to integrate bioscience theory with clinical nursing practice. Design The team-teaching workshop was offered prior to commencement of the university semester as a refresher course at an Australian university. This study employed a sequential explanatory mixed methods design incorporating both quantitative and qualitative items. Methods An evaluation survey with quantitative and qualitative items and a focus group were employed. The qualitative data were analysed using a thematic approach. The quantitative data was combined with the emergent themes in the qualitative data. Participants Participants were final year nursing students. Nine students attended the workshop. All students completed the evaluation (N = 9) and 44.4% (N = 4) attended the focus group. Results The results revealed six themes: (1) lectures are an inadequate teaching strategy for bioscience; (2) teaching strategies which incorporate active learning engage students; (3) the team-teaching workshop provides an effective learning environment; (4) the workshop content should be expanded; (5) pharmacology should relate to bioscience, and bioscience should relate to nursing; and (6) team-teaching was effective in integrating pharmacology with bioscience, and then translating this into nursing practice. Students had felt there was disjointedness between pharmacology and bioscience, and between bioscience and nursing care within their undergraduate studies. The workshop that was based on team-teaching bridged those gaps, utilised active learning strategies and provided an effective learning environment. Conclusion Team-teaching that employs active learning strategies is an effective approach to assist nursing students to integrate bioscience knowledge into their nursing practice. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd

Enrolled nurses who undertake the Bachelor of Nursing to qualify as registered nurses are usually offered advanced standing, awarding them credit for approximately one year of study. Bioscience subjects form an integral component of undergraduate nursing studies, yet being provided with credit means that these students study less bioscience than a standard-entry pathway. In this study, we examined the bioscience perceptions from enrolled nurses commencing at second year (n = 49), using a mixed methods approach. Quantitative data were analysed to determine between and within group differences with age and studies of science in secondary school. Qualitative data were organised into emerging themes, and integrated with quantitative results during analysis. Participants who had studied biology and other science in secondary school had significantly greater agreement with the importance of studying science prior to the Bachelor of Nursing. Main challenges anticipated by these students included bioscience terminology and insufficient prior science knowledge, and the volume and depth of bioscience, particularly in comparison with nursing subjects. Insufficient skills in concentrating and retaining information were also identified as concerns. Nonetheless, most participants were confident that they would learn sufficient bioscience to work as a registered nurse. Prior experience working as an enrolled nurse did not appear to confer an understanding of the importance of bioscience for the future role of the registered nurse. It is paramount that the undergraduate bioscience component is tailored towards the specific needs of this cohort in preparation for their role as registered nurses. © 2016 Australian College of Nursing Ltd

Aims and objectives: To explore new graduate registered nurses' reflections of bioscience courses during their nursing programme and the relationship between bioscience content and their clinical practice. Background: Undergraduate nursing students internationally find bioscience courses challenging, which may be due to the volume of content and level of difficulty of these courses. Such challenges may be exacerbated by insufficient integration between bioscience theory and nursing clinical practice. Design: A descriptive, cross-sectional mixed methods study was conducted. Methods: A 30-item questionnaire with five written response questions which explored recently registered nurses' reflections on bioscience courses during their nursing degree was employed. Descriptive analyses were reported for individual items. Thematic analysis of qualitative responses was grouped to reveal emerging themes. Results: Registered nurses' (n = 22) reflections revealed that bioscience courses were a significant challenge during their undergraduate programme, and they lacked confidence explaining the biological basis of nursing. Participants would like improved knowledge of the relevant bioscience for nursing and agreed that bioscience courses should be extended into the undergraduate final year. The importance of relating bioscience content to nursing practice was elaborated extensively throughout written responses. Conclusions: Although registered nurses reflected that bioscience courses were difficult with large volumes of content, having more bioscience with greater relevance to nursing applications was considered important in their current clinical practice. It is suggested that bioscience academics develop greater contextual links between bioscience content and clinical practice relevant to nursing. Relevance to clinical practice: After working as a registered nurse, there was appreciation of bioscience relevance for clinical practice, and the nurses believed they would have benefitted from more nursing-related bioscience during their undergraduate programme. Focussed integration of bioscience with clinical nursing courses should be driven by academics, nurse educators and clinical nurses to provide a biological basis for patient care to nursing students. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Nursing students have reported bioscience to be challenging and difficult to understand. This might have a negative impact upon their ability to understand patients' clinical conditions and nursing practice. We sought information about students' experiences with bioscience. A total of 126 final year nursing students completed a questionnaire. The findings showed that the majority of participants considered bioscience subjects to require more work compared to nursing subjects (65.9%), and that they would like a better understanding of bioscience (73.8%), but understood that bioscience forms the foundation of nursing practice (76.2%). Younger participants without secondary school science rated bioscience harder than nursing subjects and spent more time studying bioscience compared to older participants. Participants without any secondary school science lacked an ability to apply bioscience concepts to patient conditions. These results showed that nursing students, especially those without secondary school science, would benefit from improved bioscience integration with nursing practice. Nursing and bioscience educators should consider greater alignment of bioscience with nursing practice subjects, especially earlier in the curriculum. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

It is known that bioscience is perceived to be difficult and causes anxiety within undergraduate nursing students; yet, commencing students' perceptions of bioscience is not known. Therefore, the aim of this study was to ascertain incoming students' perceptions, knowledge and approaches to learning bioscience. Incoming students to the Bachelor of Nursing completed a questionnaire prior to undertaking bioscience. Two hundred and seventy three students completed the questionnaire that explored their expectations, preconceptions of bioscience content, approaches to learning bioscience, and relationship to clinical practice in the context of biosciences. Participant ages ranged from 17 to 53 (mean 23. years), and 78% of students had completed at least one secondary school science subject, of which 60% had studied biology. Overall, students' preconceptions included anxiety about studying bioscience, bioscience being difficult and harder than nursing subjects, and that more content will be required for bioscience than nursing subjects. Analysis using ANOVA revealed the relationships for secondary school science and age on student responses. A significant effect of secondary school science was found for science in school being advantageous for bioscience (p = 0.010), understanding what bioscience entails (p = 0.002), needing to study science prior to the start of the semester (p = 0.009), and that bioscience is considered difficult (p = 0.029). A significant effect of age was found for exams being more difficult than other assessments (p = 0.000) and for being able to see the relevance of nursing when reaching the workplace (p = 0.011). The findings also indicated that perceptions and associated anxieties related to bioscience were present in commencing students, similar to those which have been reported previously in established student groups. This strongly suggests that the faculty should attempt to dispel preconceptions about bioscience and target improved supports to facilitate the transition of students into the commencement of bioscience for nursing students. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.