Mary Asirifi

Mary’s research area of interest focuses on innovation and change in nursing education, including exploration of knowledge translation in nursing education across differing sociocultural contexts, comparative educational research and the potential for reciprocity in knowledge exchange for moving nursing education forward. Her PhD research project used a community-based participatory action research design to collaborate with stakeholders of nursing education in Ghana to identify issues and then plan and develop a collaborative vision and strategies for more effective implementation of clinical teaching and learning approaches for nursing education. Her MN thesis project employed focused ethnography to explore the beliefs and values of preceptorship in the Ghanaian context. Mary’s scholarly activities are also focused on collaborating with Canadian and international researchers in research projects on population health. Mary and a team of scholars are working on an SSHRC IDG-funded project on “Development and validation of a culturally sensitive stigma scale for adolescents with disabilities in a Sub-Saharan African Context.” She is also involved in a CIHR-funded research project with Ghanaian and Canadian interdisciplinary scholars to investigate “Combating Stigma and Social Isolation Among People Living with Lymphatic Filariasis in Ghana through Culturally Appropriate Interventions.” Mary worked with a research team from MacEwan University, collaborating with the Catholic University in Chile and TNMU in Ukraine to investigate the “Comparison of Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Cases of Edmonton (Canada), Ternopil (Ukraine), and Talca (Chile)”. The abstract of an aspect of the project entitled “Response to COVID-19 Pandemic by a Post Secondary Academic Institution – The Case of MacEwan University: A Critical Discourse Analysis” was accepted for an E-poster presentation at the ICN congress in Montreal in July 2023. Mary taught several courses at MacEwan University, such as NURS 270 (Nursing Care Across the Life Span II), NURS 175 (Foundations of Nursing Practice), NURS 344 (Fundamentals of Nursing Research), NURS 275 (Nursing Care Across the Lifespan Seminar) and NURS 375 (Nursing Care Across the Life Span III Clinical). She has also been a co-instructor for HLST 400 (Global Health Perspectives) course since 2020. Gaining experience in teaching different courses with diverse content increased Mary’s knowledge and skills in applying pedagogical approaches and strategies in different contexts of teaching and learning ethos conducive to enabling students to meet their learning outcomes. | Community-based participatory action research, nursing education, population health, qualitative education, stigma, development of culturally appropriate interventions

Mary Asirifi is Assistant Professor | Black Community Research and Innovation Group Member at MacEwan University. Their stated interests include Mary’s research area of interest focuses on innovation and change in nursing education, including exploration of knowledge translation in nursing education across differing sociocultural contexts, comparative educational research and the potential for reciprocity in knowledge exchange for moving nursing education forward. Her PhD research project used a community-based participatory action research design to collaborate with stakeholders of nursing education in Ghana to identify issues and then plan and develop a collaborative vision and strategies for more effective implementation of clinical teaching and learning approaches for nursing education. Her MN thesis project employed focused ethn. This summary considered all 2 collected sources.