Paradox of a graduate human science curriculum experienced online: a faculty perspective.

Background: Program evaluation contributes to evidence-based nursing education. Exploring graduate faculty experience with developing and teaching an online master's of science in nursing program contributes to building a science of nursing education.

Methods: A multimodal methodology for conducting a program evaluation is participatory and demonstrates both formative (improve the quality of the program) and summative (determine the worth of the program) components. Faculty participated through questionnaires, journals, and focus groups.

Results: In the context of a philosophy that values understanding lived experience as foundational for nursing, faculty are teaching in an environment that is disembodied, technology based, and at a distance. Faculty relationships with students reveal emerging curricular issues.

Conclusions: Research into the intersection of pedagogy and technology reveals similarities with contemporary literature and many lived paradoxes to be accounted for in evaluation of graduate nursing education.