The assessment and development of drug calculation skills in nurse education: a critical debate

The drug calculation skill of nurses continues to be a national concern. The continued concern has led to the introduction of mandatory drug calculation skills tests which students must pass in order to go on to the nursing register. However, there is little evidence to demonstrate that nurses are poor at solving drug calculation in practice. This paper argues that nurse educationalists have inadvertently created a problem that arguably does not exist in practice through use of invalid written drug assessment tests and have introduced their own pedagogical practice of solving written drug calculations. This paper will draw on literature across mathematics, philosophy, psychology and nurse education to demonstrate why written drug assessments are invalid, why learning must take place predominantly in the clinical area and why the key focus on numeracy and formal mathematical skills as essential knowledge for nurses is potentially unnecessary.

University education as a public service

There is no tradition of public service in large parts of English higher education. This is because historically HE in England has seen itself as independent of the state and unaccountable to the public for its twin roles of research and teaching. These serve its own interests conceived as advancing knowledge and ensuring the continued transmission of that knowledge to future generations. The dominance of this conception explains the so-called ‘academic community’s’ Gaderene rush to abandon free HE in England. Resistance to preserve and extend public service HE will therefore predictably come mainly from former-local authority further and higher education institutions.