Update on Certification for Nurse Educators

At present, there is no certification for academic nurse educators. However, in recent years, at meetings and professional development workshops, faculty members have expressed a growing interest in the opportunity to become certified as a nurse educator. In response to these expressions of interest, the NLN’s Board of Governors endorsed the serious, intense exploration of a program of certification for nursing faculty, and this exploration was undertaken in 2003.

Two surveys were developed and made available via the NLN Website from March 12 – 31, 2003. One survey was targeted to Deans/Directors/Chairs of nursing programs, and the other survey was targeted to nursing faculty. More than 3,000 responses were received during the 19 days the survey was active, and both groups were well represented among the respondents.

Analysis of the responses by the Deans/Directors/Chairs of nursing programs revealed:

84% recognized the role of nurse educator as a specialty.
• 80% saw certified educators as beneficial to their program and felt certification would motivate faculty and promote program excellence.
• 62% expressed an interest in becoming certified themselves.

Analysis of the responses by nursing faculty revealed:

• 92% consider the role of nurse educator as a specialty.
• 76% would be interested in a certification for nurse educators.
• 81% do not hold any nursing certifications.

Based on the results of this needs analysis, a business plan was developed. In
May 2003, the NLN’s Board of Governors approved the development and implementation of a certification program consisting of two levels, one focusing on the teaching/evaluation aspect of the faculty role, and the other focusing on the full scope of the faculty role. In September 2003, a call for NLN members to serve on one of three committees that were to be integral to the development of the certification exams and program -- (a) Governance, Policy & Procedure, (b) Basic Test Development and (c) Advanced Test Development -- was made at the NLN Summit and via the NLN Website.

What’s New

• The members and Chairs of the (a) Governance, Policy & Procedure, (b) Basic Test Development, and (c) Advanced Test Development, and Committees have been appointed. We would like to thank everyone who volunteered to serve on one of these committees, and are confident we have teams of people engaged in this work who will ensure the integrity and soundness of the process.
  
  
• To accomplish the task of developing the test questions for the Basic and Advanced Nurse Educator Certification Examinations, a Call for Item Writers has been posted on the NLN Website. Interested faculty members are encouraged to apply.
  
  
• The Governance, Policy and Procedure Committee is scheduled to have its first conference call in early April. Their work will focus on creating polices and procedures that are pertinent to NLN’s nurse educator certification program.
  
  
• One of the first tasks of the Basic and Advanced Test Development Committees will be to create a Role Delineation Study (RDS). The committees will draw upon the work of the Task Group on Nurse Educator Competencies as one source of information as they begin their work. While the competencies were NOT developed with certification in mind, it will be a wonderful place to start when crafting task statements that describe what nurse educators do. Once the task statements have been created, a Role Delineation Study will be developed. We will ask faculty to participate in the RDS indicating whether or not they engage in the tasks listed, the amount of time they spend on each task, and how they rate the importance of each task. These results will be analyzed and the findings used to determine the scope of practice for the basic and advanced levels of the nurse faculty role, as well as inform the test blueprint. Please check back to this site for information about participating in the Role Delineation Study.
  
  
• Based on the Test Blueprint, experienced nurse educators with item writing expertise will develop questions for the Basic and the Advanced Nurse Educator Certification Examinations.
  
  
• The next step will be to pilot test both examinations. Based on statistical analysis of the items tested, the final versions of the certification examinations will be created and then be made ready for administration early in 2006.

We will keep you informed with regular updates as we progress through each phase of this project.

If you have any questions, please contact:
Tracy A. Ortelli, MS, RN, CCRN
Coordinator, Nurse Educator Certification
Tortelli@nln.org