Nurse and Midwife Educators\u27 Experiences of Translating Teaching Methodology Knowledge into Practice in Rwanda

Nurse and midwife educators play a vital role in nursing and midwifery students’ development pre-graduation by enabling them to gain essential competencies in caring for mothers, newborns, and infants. In 2017, to enhance the quality of pre-service education of nurses and midwives in Rwanda, the Training, Support, and Access Model (TSAM) for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) project funded continuous professional development (CPD) training workshops about teaching methodologies for nurse and midwife educators from the six main programs of nursing and midwifery education around the country. This qualitative descriptive study was conducted to explore nurse and midwife educators’ experiences of translating the knowledge and skills acquired from participating in the CPD workshop about teaching methodologies into their teaching practices in Rwanda. A purposive sample of fifteen educators was participated in semi-structured individual interviews. Five themes emerged from inductive content analysis: enhanced competencies about teaching practices, application of knowledge and skills gained into classroom and clinical teaching, collaboration and teamwork, facilitators and challenges to the application of the knowledge and skills into practice, and indirect outcomes to MNCH care. The results indicated that although educators reported increased competencies in teaching, their knowledge and skills translation were often hampered by insufficient teaching materials, equipment, and heavy workloads. These findings can serve to inform the TSAM-MNCH project, post-secondary education system, and policy, and research aimed at enhancing nursing and midwifery education delivery in Rwanda