Curriculum Design to Promote the Ethical Decision-Making Competence of Accelerated Bachelor’s Degree Nursing Students

Few nursing curricula offer a course dedicated exclusively to ethical decision making. More often, ethical decision making is integrated into nursing courses and clinical experiences along with other course content. This article describes an accelerated bachelor’s degree nursing curriculum systematically organized to promote ethical decision-making competence from the first to the last nursing course. Examples of course objectives, ethical indicators, and teaching strategies emphasizing ethical decision making from trimester to trimester are outlined. A survey that assessed the similarities between critical thinking and ethical decision making perceived by faculty and students justified using critical thinking skills to measure ethical decision-making competence. t-Test calculations indicated significant improvement in the critical thinking scores of 100 students from four consecutive classes at the beginning and end of the nursing program. Examples of ethical questions examined by students are included. By integrating critical thinking skills throughout the nursing curriculum, faculty heightened the capacity of students to make and defend their own ethical decisions