Examining the change in cultural awareness of senior nursing students who participate in a semester-long culturally based assignment at a large public university

The United States (U.S) has experienced a massive growth in population over the last two decades, increasing the diversity of the nation’s population. The last census conducted in 2010, revealed a rapidly growing population in the U.S. among all categories of minority groups. Increased diversity creates differing healthcare needs for the nation, including nursing care. The nursing profession has made substantial progress towards delivering cultural care but has yet to achieve competency in all areas of nursing practice. In fact, failure to provide cultural specific healthcare has been linked to increase in healthcare disparities. The solution to avoid an unhealthy nation is delivery of cultural competent nursing care. Cultural competent care was first introduced in the early 1970s as a theory but has yet to be established as a standard in nursing education. Nursing education identified the need for cultural education in 2008 and mandated all baccalaureate nursing programs implement cultural education into their curricula. However, the cultural education requirements have not been studied for effectiveness. The purpose of the research project was to examine the impact of a culturally based assignment on student’s self-reported levels of cultural awareness. The project used a mixed methods approach to evaluate both quantitative data and qualitative data. The results revealed significant changes in some areas of cultural awareness, while other areas showed a non-significant change. The narrative analysis showed a significant impact to participant’s cultural awareness levels after completing the cultural based assignment. Overall, the research supported the use of a culturally based assignment in nursing curricula to improve the levels of cultural awareness in baccalaureate nursing students.