Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
to delete content from curricula. This was the case in this project
as well. “I think there is always a sense that sometimes people are
not ready, or not everyone at the same time says the thing for
change. So I think for some people that may have made it difficult
to participate” (Participant 3: 127-131). One participant actually
indicated that people might be threatened by change. “Particularly
from those people, it is very threatening to have change. And those
people who have been teaching there for a long time” (Participant
1: 109-111). This aspect obviously had to be dealt with also.
The collaborative process could lead to a feeling of “ownership” for
the new curriculum as well as a feeling of “collegiality” between
stakeholders and the department. One participant said: “Oh I
definitely do. Yep. I strongly feel that this is a partnership between
us and MIT. I am also the chairperson of the advisory group that
this group comes up and under. I have always been the chairperson
at that. So I very much feel a part. I feel that it is ours, as much as
MIT. It is a “we” effort. A lot of our nurses in the past joined MIT to
dream the whole curriculum writing process” (Participant 4: 186-
194). Another said: “Yes, quite strong really. I don’t know if
ownership is the word, but I think that we had to get it right.
Because they were going to be our future workforce planning, we
must have some ownership and to what they deliver to us”
(Participant 2: 186-191).
The feeling of “Ownership”, however, did not seem to pervade the
general feelings of all the stakeholders about the BN curriculum.
One participant indicated “Yes, I would be happy to say I was a
really active member. I mean I wished I was more actively
involved, but I do feel like I do have a sense of ownership in some
respect” (Participant 8: 283-286). This participant felt she worked
hard on the programme, but only slightly felt a sense of
“ownership”.
In conclusion, one can say, that there were some mixed feelings in
this category. Some stakeholders experienced a good feeling of
collegiality, in working together towards a common goal, in
developing a sense of ownership, and also in keeping contact to the
lecturers, who were not involved in the curriculum development. On
the other hand some of the stakeholders were not that optimistic
about the whole process and expressed feelings of “loss”. They were
not entirely convinced that all the needs of the stakeholders were
met.
Category 4: The Stakeholders’ view concerning collaboration
Lawson (2004:235) mentioned that the success and effectiveness of
collaboration can be deemed successful, will depend on the degree
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