الفهرس 
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Abstract
Nursing is a practice based profession underpinned by theoretical knowledge, both elements gained through a programme of nursing education. In organizing educational nursing program, the curriculum may have to be organized in terms of broad subject matter areas like humanities, behavioral sciences, biological sciences (biosciences) and nursing sciences.
There is an ongoing debate about the role of biological sciences in nursing education: What content is relevant to nursing practice? How do we apply basic science to practice? What is the nursing profession‘s contribution to patient care and how does education in the biological sciences best support that expertise?
Biosciences are key components on which to build the foundation of scientific knowledge to be used in the health care profession, especially nursing. Biosciences Courses (Biological Sciences or Biomedical Sciences( is a term used to encompass: human anatomy and physiology, parasitology, clinical microbiology, biophysics, biochemistry and pharmacology. Biosciences, which are specifically involved in this research study are; Human Anatomy, Physiology, Parasitology, Microbiology, Biophysics, Biochemistry and Pharmacology.
Despite the value given to studying biosciences, nursing students report failing to see its relevance to practice, they experience anxiety, and have poor confidence in
appropriately applying concepts to patient conditions. Students detail that the lack of applied learning in the bioscience curriculum has led to difficulties in their role as registered nurses. Therefore, academics are challenged to incorporate active teaching and learning strategies that reflect the diversity in student demographics and ensure that they produce safe competent practitioners.
The aim of the study is to
Explore nursing students‘ and medical educators‘ perspective of biosciences‘ difficulties and relevance in nursing curriculum.
Research design
A descriptive comparative exploratory research design was used to conduct this study.
Setting
This study was carried out at Alexandria Faculty of Nursing and Faculty of Medicine.
Subjects
The subjects of this study included a sample of 385 nursing students based on prevalence of difficulty of studying biosciences equal 53% , using alpha coefficient 0.05, design effect 2 and precision 5%, the sample subjects were selected from 2nd,3rd, and 4th academic year nursing students in 2015-2016, using proportional allocation technique. In
addition, 25 medical educators who taught biosciences courses for nursing students since application of credit hours system from 2006 to 2014.
Two tools were used for data collection in this study
Tool I: Nursing Students’ Perspective of Biosciences’ Difficulties and Relevance in Nursing Curriculum Questionnaire.
This tool was developed by the researcher after a thorough review of related literature to explore nursing students‘ perspective of biosciences‘ difficulties and relevance in nursing curriculum.
Tool II: Medical Educators’ Perspective of Biosciences’ Difficulties and Relevance in Nursing Curriculum Questionnaire.
This tool was developed by the researcher after thorough review of literature to explore medical educators‘ perspective of biosciences difficulties and relevance in nursing curriculum.
Tools were tested for their validity by seven experts in the related field and necessary modifications were made accordingly.
Reliability of tool I and tool II was tested for its internal consistency using the Cronbach Alpha test, the tools were reliable and the coefficient values were 0.69,0.81 respectively.
A pilot study was carried out on 10% of nursing students and 25% of medical educators.
Data was collected over a period of two months starting from the beginning of April, 2016 and continuing till the end of May, 2016. After that data was fed, coded, edited and analyzed.
The following are the main results yielded by the present study:
The majority of nursing students agreed that bioscience courses included in this study namely; human anatomy, physiology, medical parasitology, microbiology, biophysics, biochemistry, and pharmacology courses a relevant courses for nursing curriculum.
All medical educators agreed that bioscience courses included in this study a relevant courses for nursing curriculum.
The majority of nursing students perceived moderately degree of difficulties that face them in studying bioscience courses.
All medical educators perceived moderately degree of difficulties that face them in teaching bioscience courses.
There was statistically significant relationship between nursing students‘ personal and academic data and microbiology course relevance in relation to their age, residence and type of secondary school (P= 0.039*, 0.038*, 0.050*) respectively and between nursing students‘ age and microbiology course difficulties (P= 0.013*)
There was statistically significant difference between nursing students‘ age and biophysics course relevance (P= 0.039) and between nursing students‘ personal data and biophysics course difficulties in relation to their age and residence (P= 0.012, 0.048*) respectively.
There was statistically significant difference between nursing students‘ age and pharmacology course difficulties (P= 0.036*).
Nursing students ranked human anatomy and physiology courses were the most important courses for nursing profession and biophysics and biochemistry were the least important courses for nursing profession.
Nursing students ranked biophysics and biochemistry content were the most difficult courses content and physiology and human anatomy were the least difficult courses content.
The highest means benefit scores were found in human anatomy and pharmacology courses while the lowest means benefit scores were found in biophysics and biochemistry courses.
The highest means content difficulty scores were found in biophysics and microbiology courses while the lowest mean content difficulty score were found in physiology and human anatomy courses.
Recommendations
Based on the findings of the present study, the following recommendations are suggested:
Conducting workshops for medical educators about intended learning outcomes (ILOS), innovative teaching strategies and evaluation methods to improve instruction and learning processes of bioscience subjects.
Provision of all needed teaching facilities and equipment for presenting lectures to make the classroom environment conducive to learning and making sure that they are functioning well.
Provision of up to date laboratories for bioscience courses.
Teaching bioscience in partnership approach (nursing and medical educators) to correlate theoretical knowledge of bioscience subjects into nursing practice.
Provision of up to date scientific text books about biosciences for nursing in library at the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University.
Conducting curriculum committee regular meetings to revise bioscience courses‘ specifications with student course book.
Recommendations for further studies
Further studies should be conducted regarding
Conducting a comparative study among other nursing faculties regarding nursing students‘ and teaching staff perspective of biosciences‘ relevance and difficulties in nursing curriculum.
Investigating nursing students‘ and medical educators‘ suggestions for overcoming obstacles of biosciences‘ studying and teaching.
Analyzing of nursing students‘ performance in bioscience courses.