Nursing graduation and development of professional skills: the teachers' perceptions

percepções dos professores

Abstract

A descriptive and essentially quantitative field research was carried out in order to describe and analyze how teachers see the ideal and actual contributions of a private higher education Nursing course of Belo Horizonte, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, to the development of the students' professional skills, given the importance of its role in Academic and Professional Nursing Training. Data were collected through document survey, direct observation and, mainly, through a questionnaire given to 39 teachers and nurses of the course - 23 of them were filled out and returned. Data were introduced into an electronic spreadsheet. Analysis showed that teachers validated specific ideas with regards to an ideal situation, as mentioned in the Curricular Guidelines of the Nursing Undergraduate Course and the general items of the Fleury & Fleury model. However, when they were asked about the actual course's contribution to graduation and development of skills, "unsatisfactory" classification was observed. Therefore, questions about the institution's policies and practices and about students and teachers' behavior were raised. In the end, the limitations of the research were highlighted, and suggestions for the course, for the institution, and for further studies were given.