Appraisal of Egyptian Nursing Faculties in Light of Egyptian Accreditation Standards: Perception of Students, Staff Members and Employees

Abstract

Accreditation has gained worldwide attention as an effective quality evaluation and management tool. Accreditation of educational institutions in Egypt is granted by "The National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Education NAQAAE ".  To be accredited, the educational institution has to prove that it has the institutional capacity and the educational effectiveness in accordance with the minimum "National Academic Reference Standards", or any other international standards approved by "The National Authority for Quality Assurance and accreditation of education" and that it has advanced systems that assures continuous quality improvement and enhancement. This study aimed to identify perceptions of students, staff members and employees regarding the implementation of the Egyptian accreditation standards in accredited and non accredited nursing faculties. Design a descriptive comparative design was utilized. The sample included 2195 students, 322 post graduate students, 566 staff members, 41 academic leaders and 341employees. This study was conducted at 5 Egyptian nursing faculties two are accredited (Cairo& Alexandria) and three are not yet accredited (Zagzig, Ismailia & Banha).  Data were collected over a period of 10 months started in November 2012 till the end of August 2013. Methods: the researcher used 5 questionnaires as data collection methods; one for undergraduate students, one for graduate students, one for faculty staff, one for academic leaders and one for employees.  Each questionnaire consisted of two main parts; the first part assesses the socio demographic data of the respondents, the second part deals with the 16 domains of accreditation according to NAQAAE classification; 8 domains for institutional capacity and 8 domains for educational effectiveness. Results: of the study revealed that there were statistically significant differences between accredited and non accredited nursing faculties regarding total scores of institutional capacity. However there were no statistical differences between nursing faculties regarding total educational effectiveness. On the other hand, there were highly statistically significant relationship between total institutional capacity and total educational effectiveness and their total sub scales for accredited nursing faculty's staff members. There was highly statistically significant relationship between total institutional capacity and total educational effectiveness for non accredited faculties’ academic leaders. Finally there was statistically significant relationship between total institutional capacity and total educational effectiveness scores for accredited nursing faculty's employees. Conclusion: accredited nursing faculties showed more effective quality education than non accredited nursing faculties. Recommendation: the most important recommendation is to maintain strengths of the accredited nursing faculties and to encourage the non-accredited to fulfill requirements and seek accreditation.

Keywords: Accreditation Egyptian Nursing, Accreditation Standards, Perception of Students, Staff Members and Employees