2012 Volume 22 Issue 2 Pages 41-53
The purpose of this study is to review the role of liberal education by studying the teaching staff’sawareness of liberal education at universities that offer a nursing program. A questionnaire survey was conducted at the nine universities that offer nursing education and consented to participate, and the form was sent to 493 members of the teaching staff who held a position of associate professor or higher and who taught general, basic specialist or nursing specialist subjects. Two-hundred-and-fifty-one responses were returned （return rate：50.9%）and analyzed. The results showed that the majority was female. They were most likely in their 40s or 50s, held a professor’s tenure, and specialized in nursing （56%）.These members of the teaching staff were aware that there is an association with liberal arts subjects, although fewer than half of them had any experience in inter-subject coordination, concerning such matters as duplication of lesson content, making connections between subjects, aligning the subjects and creating a timetable. Review of the differences in the awareness of concern about liberal education among those responsible for general, basic specialist or nursing specialist subjects revealed a higher interest held by the nursing teaching staff than the teaching staff in Medicine, Dentistry and pharmacology, elucidating an inter-specialty difference. Many members of the teaching staff were aware of issues with general education, and such tasks as developing an appropriate curriculum, coordination between teaching staff, university-wide efforts, working with the students, and so forth, were identified.
