Nursing students’ experiences of change: From a traditional curriculum to a competency-based curriculum

Abstract

Background: In the past decade, nursing education has initiated important curricular changes based on competency training. The discipline faces the challenge of defining the most relevant competencies for students to acquire. Objective: To understand the experiences of students from the Catholic University of the Maule, Chile about competency-based education. Methodology: A qualitative, descriptive and interpretative study was conducted. A total of 17 semi-structured interviews were performed. Van Manen’s holistic approach was used in the analysis. Results: The emergent themes were feelings experienced regarding curricular innovation; the difficult implementa-tion of competencies; the profound changes; and a good teaching. Conclusion: The study allowed us to understand the meaning of curricular innovation from the students’ perspective and provided relevant information for curricular redesign. It allowed us to reflect on the teaching/learning process of competency-based curricula in Latin-America.