title: Building a bridge for nursing education and clinical care in Taiwan--using action research and Confucian tradition to close the gap.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nursing workplaces in Taiwan are unable to retain talent. An examination of this problem has revealed that the causes of this phenomenon are that nursing education fails to cultivate the skills that meet workplace requirements and that there are gap between nursing education and clinical practice.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This paper is an action research that aims is to design educational programs that can close the gap between nursing education and clinical practice in Taiwan.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this action research project, 4 action cycles were used to design educational programs including concept mapping and focused discussion strategies.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were invited to join the research in three teaching hospitals and one university.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two groups of participants, student nurses (SN) and nursing staff personnel (NS), were sampled and invited to participate in the research.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participant observation, focus groups, and qualitative interviews were used to collect data. Qualitative data were not only profiled by content analysis, but they were also compared continuously between the two groups as well as between the 4 cycles.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The qualitative data collected for the 135 participants were analysed. The themes of an effective nursing program were summarized.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Many fundamental values of traditional Chinese education have gradually faded due to the Westernization of education. In this study, we discovered that Western educational models may play a critical role in improving traditionally taught nursing education programs.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Allied Health Sciences, College of Medicine, National Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Wan-Ping
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Co-Shi Chantal
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Chao
authors.forename: Wei-Shu
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.forename: Ching-Huey
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ya Lan
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Shih
authors.forename: Ge-Lin
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Chiu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002983:Clinical Competence; D032903:Confucianism; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017144:Focus Groups; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009732:Nursing Care / Q000592:standards*; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D036301:Qualitative Research; D013624:Taiwan; D055815:Young Adult