Transforming Undergraduate Evidence-Based Practice Education

Background: – Despite evidence-based practice (EBP) concepts having a presence in undergraduate curricula, many practicing nurses do not meet EBP competency. Problem: – Schools of nursing are addressing this gap as major curricular revisions with a competency focus are underway to promote “practice ready” graduates. Approach: – This article describes a semester-long EBP activity that involves team-based active learning within a large classroom environment and leverages academic-practice partner engagement to enhance undergraduate student learning and EBP competency attainment. Outcomes: – This multifaceted active learning class, which included an experiential component, engaged students with a real clinical issue and led to strong performance on end-of-semester EBP assessments, demonstrating their ability to develop evidence-based solutions. Conclusion: – Combining active learning methods with practice partner collaboration in a large class setting is an innovative approach to advance undergraduate student EBP competency while addressing practice partner clinical issues.