Nurse educator competence in four European countries—A comparative cross‐sectional study

Abstract

Abstract Aim The aim of this article is to describe and compare the nurse educator competences in four European countries using three different evaluators: nurse educators (n = 329), heads of a nursing subject (n = 60) and student nurses (n = 1058). Design The study was conducted as a comparative cross‐sectional survey in Finland, Malta, Slovakia and Spain between May 2021 and February 2022. Methods The data were collected with an online survey. The instrument used was a 20‐item Tool for Evaluation of Requirements of Nurse Teachers, utilizing a 5‐point Likert‐type scale. The data were analysed statistically and reported according to STROBE guidelines. Results Nurse educators' competence evaluated positively in all the groups of evaluators, with a mean of >3.5. The self‐evaluation of nurse educators' competence was higher than the other evaluators' evaluations. Having a degree in nursing, having completed some pedagogical studies and longer work experience as a nurse educator had a positive association with higher self‐evaluated competence among nurse educators. Conclusions Nurse educator competence is at a good level in the selected European countries, but further studies are required to find the reasons behind the differences in evaluations. Public Contribution Each participating educational institution named a contact person who distributed the surveys to the participants and returned the study's metadata to the researchers.

Keywords

• nurse educators
• pedagogical competence
• professional competence