Abstract: The objective of this study was to conduct research to inform the development of standards for nurse practitioner education in Australia and New Zealand and to contribute to the international debate on nurse practitioner practice. The research was conducted in all states of Australia where the nurse practitioner is authorised, and in New Zealand. The research was informed by multiple data sources including nurse practitioner programme curricula documents from relevant universities in Australia and New Zealand, interviews with academic convenors of these programmes and interviews with nurse practitioners. Findings include support for masters level of education as preparation for the nurse practitioner. These programs need to have a strong clinical learning component and in-depth education for the sciences of specialty practice. Additionally an important aspect of education for the nurse practitioner is the centrality of student directed and flexible learning models. This approach is well supported by the literature on capability.

Abstract: The authors evaluated a nurse-led cardiovascular disease and diabetes (CVD) management project. The Ministry of Health funded the project to implement models of nurse service delivery, with care pathways for risk reduction of CVD and diabetes based on national guidelines, with quality assurance, audit and nurse leadership. The paper presents the components required to implement and sustain a nurse CVD risk assessment and management service, which were identified and clarified through the action research process.

Abstract: In 1973, two trial pre-registration nursing education programmes were piloted in New Zealand polytechnics. These represented an alternative to traditional hospital-sited schools of nursing. The establishment of nursing education in the tertiary sector marked a radical challenge to the cultural heritage of apprenticeship-style nursing training associated with paternal and medically-dominated health institutions. This thesis offers a Foucauldian and feminist poststructuralist analysis of discourses employed by fifteen senior nursing educators in the comprehensive registration programmes between 1973 and 1992. The women employed to teach in the comprehensive programmes faced unique challenges in establishing departments of nursing, in developing curricula that would promote a reorientation of nursing and in supporting candidates to attain their nursing registration. Through semi-structured interviews and discourse analysis methods, a set of unique characteristics shared by this group of early leading comprehensive nursing educators has emerged. The women's narratives were underpinned by discourses that centre around the valuing of education as a vehicle for emancipation and an upholding of a legitimacy of difference in nursing educators' work. The participants upheld the importance of clinical practice skills and drew on their own student nursing experiences as incentives for reforming nursing education. These nursing educators conceptualised an idealised type of graduate, and commonly employed an heroic metaphor to describe their experiences as senior comprehensive educators. Their engagement with such discourses and their shared characteristics demonstrate unique re-constitutions of power, knowledge and relations with their colleagues and clients throughout the education and health care sectors. The author proposes that these traits characterise the women as strategic and astute professionals who successfully negotiated the construction of comprehensive nursing programmes as a legitimate and transformative preparation for nursing registration.

Abstract: The transition from student to registered nurse is a challenging and often stressful time in a nurse's career. This thesis is a case study research project that explores the graduate nurses' perceptions of preceptorship as a strategy to support this transition at Lakes District Health Board (DHB). As a provider of graduate nurse programmes since 1995, Lakes DHB has provided preceptorship for the nurse in the initial period of clinical practice. Annual evaluation by questionnaire identified that this has been applied in a range of ways in different clinical settings with varying degrees of effectiveness. Further inquiry into graduate nurses' perceptions of the preceptored experience during the first twelve weeks of practice within Lakes DHB forms the basis of this research project. The intention is to utilise this insight to further inform the development of preceptor education programmes and application of the preceptor role in the practice setting. Using the case study research method, data has been collected from fourteen participants using semi-structured interviews, focus groups and secondary data from the previous year's questionnaire undertaken by preceptors and graduate nurses. Thematic analysis of the data has resulted in two categories, each with three associated themes. The first category relates to functional factors in the way the preceptorship role is applied. This explores the role of the Clinical Nurse Educator (CNE), organisation within the unit and the teaching of clinical skills. The second category relates to psychosocial considerations and includes the graduate's sense of being scared and advocacy of the preceptor, socialisation and team support, and the preceptor's own experience as a registered nurse. Recommendations from the research include the allocation of a dedicated preceptor selected with consideration for relational ability; complementary rostering and workload allocation to ensure that the preceptor and graduate nurse work together; early notification when preceptor arrangements break down; implementation of a clinical coaching plan; and strengthening the CNE's role as a leader facilitating and supporting preceptorship in the units. Opportunities for further research that arise from the study include the perceptions of the preceptors and the nursing leadership in clinical areas. Structuring the application of preceptorship, to ensure that all of these aspects are woven throughout the graduate nurse's transition results in Korowai Aroha, a cloak of covering for a supported transition that facilitates the development of practice.

Abstract: The study gives an account of curriculum development and innovation in a New Zealand school of nursing and focuses on some aspects of the basic diploma course. The study attempts, through the medium of case study, to illuminate the way in which significant curriculum decisions are made and ideas translated into institutional and technical form. Evidence is derived from the recorded perceptions of the participants, observations, and analyses of documented material. The findings confirm that the field of study is complex, multivariable and dynamic, and that translation of the curriculum on paper involves a multitude of deliberative and factual decisions by practicing teachers