Evidencing diversity: development of a structured tool for investigating teaching of pressure injury on people with darker skin tones

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Dismantling structural racism challenges nurses to consider the extent to which issues of inclusion, diversity and race are operationalised in day-to-day professional practice. This includes nurse education. To be truly effective, any examination of teaching content in nurse education needs to be investigated through document analysis plus observation in the classroom. However, tools to ensure consistency between these methods of collecting data are limited. AIM: To design a structured tool for collecting data by analysing teaching materials and observing teaching on pressure injuries and people with darker skin tones. DISCUSSION: This novel approach of using a single tool provides a unique opportunity to explore teaching materials and what is actually taught in the classroom. The data collected can assist with comparative analysis, enabling an in-depth view of curriculum content. CONCLUSION: The nuanced and subtle data gathered using the complementarity of analysis between teaching materials and teaching observations in the exemplar tool presented created a unique data set for examination. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: This tool has broad applications for nurse researchers, particularly for examining topics that are often perceived to be sensitive, such as race and skin tone. It can be used for in-depth scrutiny of classroom teaching, to develop and influence curriculum content and team discussions, and in larger studies exploring nurse education content.