190 ■ II: ROLES FOR DOCTORAL ADVANCED NURSING PRACTICE
graduate nursing education courses, or 4 years of teaching, which, unfortunately, sub-
scribes to the apprentice model of nursing. The criterion has changed to nine credits
in nursing education courses or 2 years as a nurse educator (NLN, 2014). This change
in eligibility coincides with the shortage of nurse educators. Interestingly, the CNE
examination has a low first- time pass rate, approximately 62% (Susan Pyle, personal
communication, NLN, September 6, 2015), when compared to other nursing certification
examinations. This begs the questions, “is the nurse educator workforce ill- prepared in
totality to successfully complete the examination or is the test non- specific for the cur-
rent practice of nurse educators?” The CNE examination has been appropriately revised
by nursing education experts since it was originally developed in 2005 and is based on a
practice analysis.
There are only approximately 5,000 CNEs in the United States (NLN, personal
communication, September 6, 2015) out of approximately 56,840 nurse educators (U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014), or only 9%. This too is another example of the pro-
longed qualified nurse educator shortage that threatens the stability of every realm of
professional nursing.
■ NURSING EDUCATION RESEARCH
Nursing education is one of the least researched areas of nursing (Zungolo, 2010). The cur-
rent literature trend is to justify the output of the DNP scholar as different but equal to that
of the PhD scholar (Melnyk, 2013; Redman et al., 2015). While recognizing that DNP- and
PhD- prepared students and faculty yield vital clinical scholarship, there remains a vacuity
in knowledge development about the nursing education. The current research examines
the personal attributes of doctorally prepared nurse educators rather than emphasizing
their fields of research. Focusing on demographics and retirement statistics of these nurses
instead of distinguishing whether they are producing educational or clinical research has
created redundancies rather than a true evaluation of nursing education knowledge devel-
opment. Nor does the current research address how many nursing education courses were
infused into the participants’ graduate education (Hall Ellenbecker & Kazmi, 2014). The
nursing educational knowledge is one of the least studied areas and nurse educators lack-
ing coursework in the nursing education may very well be part of the reason as well as the
scarcity of dedicated funding. One glaring epilogue that reflects the phenomenon of nurs-
ing research deprivation is the reliance that nurse educators have on third party compa-
nies to facilitate student learning, predict student National Council Licensure Examination
(NCLEX) success, and remediate. The teaching– learning process in nursing that includes
all of the previously mentioned activities should be and can be orchestrated within an edu-
cational department if adequate numbers of faculty with adequate expertise were avail-
able. The AACN (2006) expresses the need for quality nursing education research:
Nursing education research centers on developing and testing more effi-
cient educational processes, identifying new ways to incorporate technol-
ogy in order to enhance learning, and discovering more effective approaches
to promoting lifelong learning and commitment to leadership. To achieve
these goals, the use of rigorous research strategies in the assessment of the
teaching- learning process and outcomes at all levels of nursing education is
essential from baccalaureate and graduate education through the continu-
ous supply of well- educated nurses is critical to maintain and enhance our
nation’s health, especially in light of the changes in the demographics of the
population. To this end, new strategies for recruiting and retaining bright
young men and women from diverse educational and cultural backgrounds