Carroll Iwasiw

Professional socialisation of nursing students as an outcome of a senior clinical preceptorship experience

The study purpose was to examine the effects of a senior clinical preceptorship experience on the professional socialisation of nursing students. Corwins (1961) conception of the professional nursing role and literature on professional socialisation provided the model for the study. A three-group, pre- and post-test design was used. The voluntary, non-randomised sample was drawn from 242 senior community college, baccalaureate and RN-BScN nursing students. Instruments were the Lawler-Corwin (1988) Nursing Role Conception Scale and the Lawler-Stone (1988) Health Care Professional Attitude Inventory. Demographic data were collected. One-way ANOVA was used to compare the mean scores among the three groups. For statistically significant (p < 0.05) F tests, Student-Newman-Keuls multiple comparison tests were used to determine which pairs of groups were different. Pre-post scores were compared using paired t-tests. Following the preceptorship, on the Lawler-Stone subscales, the groups became more professional and more similar in attitude. On Corwins three role conceptions, the total group reported less role conflict, with the community college students having the least and the RN-BScN students the most amount of conflict. The mixed results emphasise that professional socialization requires further research, especially as an outcome of a preceptorship experience for RN-BScN students.

Computer Conferencing in Graduate Nursing Education: Perceptions of Students and Faculty

The authors report the perceptions of students and faculty who participated in a computer conferenced (CC) graduate course in nursing. Ten graduate students and three faculty members completed a course evaluation form, which included items about learning, interaction, environment, technical support, and satisfaction with CC. Responses indicated the CC medium offered a creative and flexible alternative for learning. Course participants perceived benefits such as enriched learning, meaningful interactions, opportunities for reflection, satisfaction with the technology, and the convenience of learning from a distance. These results have implications for facilitating continuing education.

Graduate Education in Nursing Leadership Through Distance Technologies: The Canada-Norway Nursing Connection

The Canada-Norway Nursing Connection was a collaborative project designed to provide an international educational experience for graduate students in nursing via distance technology. Computer-conferencing and video-teleconferencing were used to address nursing leadership content through case studies. The same technologies were employed to develop the project. The processes of planning and implementing the international linkage are described. Agreement about goals, content, context for online discussion, delivery methods, academic expectations, language support, and logistics was essential. The media proved to be effective for students to gain understandings about nursing leadership, health care, and the forces influencing the nursing profession globally. Insights from the project provided a basis for the development of a model for interactive, international graduate education that will be of value to educators dedicated to helping students gain a global understanding of nursing and health care issues.

Resilience in Nursing Education: An Integrative Review.

BACKGROUND Resilience is a phenomenon known to buffer the negative effects of stress. Resilience is important in the lives of nursing students and nurse educators. METHOD An integrative literature review was conducted to explore the current state of knowledge of resilience in the context of nursing education. Implications from the review findings were deduced for nursing education practice and research. RESULTS Three theoretical papers and 16 empirical reports were included in the review. Three themes emerged from the analysis: (a) Resilience Is Important in Nursing Education, (b) Resilience Is Conceptualized as Either a Trait or a Process, and (c) Resilience Is Related to Protective Factors. CONCLUSION The findings provide data to support interventions to enhance the resilience of nursing students and nurse educators and offer a foundation for further research of resilience in nursing education.

Reciprocal learning among students in the clinical area.

Reciprocal learning is a cooperative, collegial method in which there is mutuality of student to student or student to faculty interaction, assistance, and benefits. This teaching method is congruent with curriculum revolution concepts. The authors describe reciprocal learning and provide an example of its application in the clinical area. Guidelines for implementation of the strategy are presented.

The mandala: first-year undergraduate nursing students' learning experiences.

Abstract The mandala is a circular art form used by psychologists to access subconscious thought through symbolism and it has recently been adopted by nurse educators as a learning strategy for self-awareness. The lived experiences of six first-year undergraduate nursing students who completed a mandala assignment for emotional learning were explored using hermeneutic phenomenology. Participants experiences diverged from their original expectations that the mandala assignment would allow for a fun and free expression of ‘self’. Participants did describe experiences of self-discovery; however, their experiences also resembled those associated with socialization in nursing education. Participants described both self-reflection and critical-reflection while completing the mandala assignment. Nurse educators and researchers can gain insight regarding the use of this assignment as an integrated transformative learning approach for emotional learning.

Actor‐Network Theory as a sociotechnical lens to explore the relationship of nurses and technology in practice: methodological considerations for nursing research

Actor-Network Theory is a research lens that has gained popularity in the nursing and health sciences domains. The perspective allows a researcher to describe the interaction of actors (both human and non-human) within networked sociomaterial contexts, including complex practice environments where nurses and health technology operate. This study will describe Actor-Network Theory and provide methodological considerations for researchers who are interested in using this sociotechnical lens within nursing and informatics-related research. Considerations related to technology conceptualization, levels of analysis, and sampling procedures in Actor-Network Theory based research are addressed. Finally, implications for future nursing research within complex environments are highlighted.

A facilitative approach to learning about curriculum development.

Graduate students have high ambitions and desire excellence in their work. Creating learning opportunities that capture this drive and help them achieve and exceed their goals is a challenge for educators. This article describes two teaching approaches, group process and an adaptation of Bensusans escalator model, which were used in a graduate nursing course to help students learn about curriculum development. Students participated as a faculty group, submitting successive iterations of their work as they developed hypothetical curricula. Benefits students identified from course facultys critiques of their submissions included experiencing enhanced self-direction, self-esteem, and mutual respect among students and between students and course faculty, as well as authentic curriculum development in a safe, caring, and supportive context. This article discusses the strengths and limitations of this pragmatic and productive learning approach to preparing future nurse educators for their role as curriculum developers.

IKT og internasjonalt samarbeid: Erfaringer med Internett konferansesystem som del av studiet i sykepleievitenskap

Current development and use of Information Technology (IT) enables new learning experiences and international collaboration. In this article we present experiences from the joint project «Canada-Norway Nursing Connection: International Computer Conferencing in Graduate Nursing Education» where we used an interactive, asynchronous Internet conferencing system to facilitate communication and learning. To provide context and framework for discussion and interaction we developed three cases to address issues of interest. The cases focused on leadership, organizational change and team-building. Students of health care management at the Institute of Nursing Science at the University of Oslo, Norway and nursing management at School of Nursing at the University of Western Ontario, Canada engaged in focused discussion framed by the cases over a project period of 6 weeks. In evaluation of the project, experience with learning, collaboration with other students, technology and satisfaction was emphasized. The students viewed international collaboration as the most important and meaningful leaning experience. Further they also found the technology feasible to facilitate learning over a distance. In addition, the students would have liked more time to allow in-depth discussions and analysis of each case.