Capella PhD in nursing education

marachne · Mar 9, 2009

Not familiar with it -- what is its draw for you?

12hours · Jul 16, 2009

I was viewing the faculty profiles of St. Francis University's (Joliet, IL) school of nursing and 2 or 3 of their professors received their PhD's from Capella U. You may want to e-mail them about their experience with this university.

allnurses Guide · Jul 17, 2009

You really want to do your PhD somewhere that there are faculty who have experience in the area you plan to do your research in, don't you?

Barinbass · Jul 17, 2009

How can I find out the faculty specialies at any given university? I had a hard enough time trying to find that from my present university. I probably will be transferring and would ike to go where the faculty has interest and experence in my area of choice. How do we find that out? Thanks

allnurses Guide · Jul 17, 2009

Looking at literature in your area, are checking out where the researchers are from, checking university websites etc - many list faculty research interests. Maybe some of our PhD posters can help out here.

llg, PhD, RN · Jul 17, 2009

You should already be familiar with the leading journals in your area of interest. If not, that is a good place to start to learn about a field that you think might be a good choice for you. Look through the literature to get a sense of the researchers in that field.

Many colleges/universities have websites that include a list of their faculty members. They may include a little blurb about each faculty member that will tell you about the courses they teach, clinical specialties, areas of research interest, etc. If not, you could use the faculy list to identify those faculty members with PhD's. They would be the ones who would be teaching in the PhD program. Do a literature search (on CINAHL preferably as it has the largest, broadest nursing data base) using each of those faculty members as the author you are searching for. That will pull up lists of their publications. You would then read those publications if they are in your field and you think you might like to work with that faculty member.

You can also look at brochures for conferences in the specialty area of your choice. Look at who the speakers are to help you identify who the leaders are in your field.

marachne · Jul 18, 2009

As others have noted, many, if not most universities that have PhD programs will have faculty pages that list current, or most salient publications/active funded research. Looking at this information will give you info regarding what their research focus areas are. As was mentioned, it is also good to do a lit search on the research area in CINAHL and see what names come up, and then what unis they are at. One caveat about that -- if you depend on the listing on the article, they may no longer be at the institution listed on the morificecript.

If you think you are iterested in a particular institution, I would contact their graduate department, tell them where your interest lies, and ask what faculty are engaged in research in that area.

I just went and looked at the Capella site. I would be very cautious about getting an EdD from a generic institution like this. While there is certainly aspects of education that is cross-discipline and profession, there are also aspects of nursing education that are much more specific to the profession. I would wonder about the quality/appropriateness of the education you recieved, as well as your marketability as nursing faculty w/o some connection to nursing education. When I did a search on PhD in nursing education distance programs, I see that Capella came up, but the fact that when you go to their site you don't get any kind of listing of the specific faculty to me is not encouraging. Not saying you shouldn't explore it as an option, but I'd say look at other options that might serve you better. Ask to be able to interview faculty. Ask for names/contact info of graduates from the program who you can talk with. Really do your homework, as it's too much of an investment of time and energy to not get what you want or need.

UVA Grad Nursing · Jul 20, 2009

One other thing to consider is whether nursing programs will hire faculty whose terminal degrees are not in nursing.

Nursing has has its own doctoral degrees (PhD in Nursing, DSN, ND, DNSc) since the early 1980s. An Ed.D. is a degree in education. In the years before 1980 or so, many nursing faculty had Ed.D degrees --- nowadays not as many. At my own University, we have not hired an Ed.D in the school of nursing for over two decades.

Check around your area universities and see if there is a preference for PhD (or DNP) in hiring positions over the Ed.D.