Directed study time within the pre-registration nursing curricula: are students motivated?

This paper follows on from the editorial in the previous edition entitled, ‘The changing face of student nurse education and training programmes’ (Ousey, 2011), which discussed how nurse education has progressed from the historical image of ‘doctors’ handmaidens’ to competent nurses, equipped with skills of problem-solving and critical thinking with the move towards an all-graduate profession. Within the current pre-registration nursing curricula, nursing students are required to complete 2300 hours theory and 2300 hours practice over a three-year period (Nursing and Midwifery Council [NMC], 2010). However, exactly how these theory hours are structured within nursing curricula is open to interpretation. The approximate amount of face-to-face teaching contact that nurse lecturers have with students is fifty percent of the total theory hours. The remaining fifty percent is non-contact time, often referred to on timetables within nursing curricula as ‘directed study’.