MSN in Education or MS Ed?

Whispera, MSN, RN · Feb 12, 2014

I'm a university faculty member. I have a BSEd and a BSN and a MSN (not in education). The degrees work well together. To teach in a university, you'll need a MSN most places. Some I work with are facing a deadline to get their MSN's while they already have MSEds.

coopman712 · Feb 12, 2014

Good to know...thanks so much!

Do you know if it is the same for Nurse Educators that work in hospitals as opposed to universities? ie, a facility's nurse educator?

Whispera, MSN, RN · Feb 12, 2014

I was a hospital nurse educator with a BSN. That was about 10 years ago--things might have changed.

nurse2033, MSN, RN · Feb 13, 2014

Don't get your BSN! You can get an MSN in the same time frame, for just a little more money. I got my MSN from Excelsior with my ASN (RN) and a bachelor in something else. Don't work harder, work smarter! You can email me with any questions.

coopman712 · Feb 14, 2014

Thanks-I keep going back and forth with the BSN vs MSN. With now 3 degrees under my belt, it is so hard to motivate going back to school....

classicdame, MSN, EdD · Feb 14, 2014

In my area of the country, an MSN with an emphasis on education is preferred in hospitals. There are subtle differences.

allnurses Guide · Feb 20, 2014

My MSN in ed program had a lot of classes specifically for nursing, such as curriculum, admissions, setting up clinical sites, etc., as well as the roles and political side of nursing advocacy. It seems to me as far as teaching techniques the regular MS in ed would do; but you would be missing out on a lot of the specifics for nursing faculty. It was pretty interesting when my program was going through the re-accreditation process just how many things I recognized from school, that were very specific about bits and parts of the nursing curriculum.

HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD · Feb 25, 2014

Agree for the most part with the PPs. But I would add a caveat that an MSN-Edu is necessary, but not sufficient in workplace education. We non-academic types have to deal with a lot of issues like FLSA compliance that aren't commonly encountered in academia. We also have enormous pressure on productivity, so we need to be familiar with a wide variety of instructional methods to produce the best results in the shortest time. Most of us have to manage LMS's and many of us design and develop eLearning. My job also entails a lot of strategic planning and project management because employee education is an integral component of every organizational initiative.

So - you many need to grab some additional 'education' courses to bring you up to speed on workplace education. These are widely available in any grad school that has an 'Educational Administrator' & 'Curriculum and Instruction' degrees.

cls376 · Mar 2, 2014

Not to upset you more but..... the current climate at many universities is the want for a PhD. I have a MSN and am working on finishing my PhD because I could not be permanent faculty without the PhD. I even thought about changing schools but most of those offering full time jobs want faculty to have a PhD....

Also, many schools do require either the MSN or PhD in nursing so.... get a master's in nursing....

llg, PhD, RN · Mar 2, 2014

At my hospital, there are unit-level educators with only BSN's who work part-time in a direct patient care and part-time doing staff education activities.

We also have a higher level of staff educator who work full time in education and who are paid more. Those positions require an MSN. We do hire people with MSN's in clinical field (not education-focused), but we ask those people to get significant continuing education in Nursing Professional Development to help them learn how to teach in the field of their clinical expertise. Someone with a Master's in Education (not nursing) would be considered only if they were certified in their clinical field and had experience in nursing staff education at a lower level. Certification in Nursing Professional Development would also help such a candidate (which currently requires only a BSN).