Degree Name
Nursing Practice, DNP
Publication Date
12-1-2025
First Advisor
Lisa Drake
Second Advisor
Sandy King
Abstract
With the ongoing nursing shortage, nursing education plays a vital role in shaping the future of healthcare through the preparation of competent and skilled nurses. Literature supports that a persistent challenge within nursing academia is the lack of structured mentoring programs to support novice nursing faculty transitioning into academic roles. This quality improvement project addressed this gap through the implementation of a structured, evidence-based mentoring program compared to informal mentoring. The purpose of the project was to empower novice nursing faculty with less than three years of teaching experience by enhancing teaching competence, confidence, job satisfaction, and retention. Guided by Kram’s Mentoring Theory and Lewin’s Change Theory, the project utilized a quasi-experimental pre- and post-intervention design to evaluate the impact of a formal mentoring program on confidence using the Novice Faculty Confidence Scale (NFCS). Two participants completed pre- and post-intervention surveys over an eight-week period. Because of the small sample size, a nonparametric sign test was used for analysis. Intellectus Statistics revealed that both participants demonstrated small-to-moderate increases in confidence, with 80% of NFCS items showing positive change and a mean score increase of +0.32, indicating improved perceived relevance of mentoring. Although limited by sample size and generalizability, results suggest that structured mentoring enhances novice faculty confidence and professional growth. This quality improvement project contributes to the discipline by supporting the feasibility and value of structured mentorship as a sustainable strategy for faculty development and retention in nursing education.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Sugg, Sarah, "Quality Improvement Project: Empowering Nurse Educators: Implementing a Mentoring Program for Professional Growth" (2025). Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects. 251.
https://arch.astate.edu/dnp-projects/251
