Faculty caring behaviors in online nursing education: an integrative review

ABSTRACT

As online programs for nursing education continue to grow, nursing faculty must develop strategies for engaging with and supporting students in this form of distance learning. The concept of caring, which is central to nursing education, overlaps with teaching and social presence concepts from the community of inquiry model in education. After reviewing both distance education and nursing literature for background, we conducted an integrative review of studies focusing on online graduate nursing education. We found consistency in the types of faculty behaviors that were described, and that those behaviors aligned with our definition of caring. Implications for distance education include the need to better prepare faculty for online teaching so that they can be intentional about implementing caring behaviors when designing and delivering online education.

Keywords:

• online learning
• caring
• social presence
• faculty behaviors

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge Amy Edwards, Research Librarian, Thomas Cooper Library at the University of South Carolina, for her assistance with the literature search.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was declared by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate Jones

Kate Jones is an associate professor and director the Nursing Administration and Nursing Executive Leadership graduate programs at the University of South Carolina, USA. Dr. Jones’s scholarship focuses on caring in nursing leadership and academia, and her clinical practice area is home and community-based care.

Phyllis Raynor

Phyllis Raynor is an assistant professor in the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program at the University of South Carolina, USA. As a public health nurse scientist, Dr. Raynor focuses on research, prevention, public advocacy, and health promotion initiatives for families affected by substance use disorders.

Vera Polyakova-Norwood

Vera Polyakova-Norwood is the director of distributed learning at the University of South Carolina’s College of Nursing. Ms. Polyakova-Norwood has more than 20 years of experience in designing, teaching, and managing distance education courses and programs. She has presented on technology-based teaching and learning at local, national, and international conferences.