In the current climate of a nursing shortage, the lack of well qualified nursing faculty to prepare nurses is a significant problem. An assumption can be made that nurse educators need advanced practice clinical skills as well as high quality teaching skills. The purpose of this qualitative study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a graduate nurse educator clinical skill building practicum from the student perspective. Constructivism which supports that students need to build their own knowledge was the theoretical framework. The first NE practicum course allowed students to develop their own learning objectives, and seek experiences that would meet the objectives and promote clinical learning at an advanced practice level. Students were directed to “Go out and do things that improve your clinical knowledge. Fill in the holes in your knowledge about nursing practice”. Each of the eight graduate nursing students kept a reflective journal that included the nature of the clinical experiences and the learning that was occurring. The design for the study was based on the phenomenologic tradition of describing lived experience and the perceptions to which it gives rise. Data about the learning experiences were collected from journal entries, individual interviews and group responses from class. Data were analyzed for common themes and identification of perspectives about the clinical learning experiences. The findings from this study support that graduate nurse educator students can develop appropriate learning experiences when they are allowed to identify their own learning needs, objectives and clinical experiences. The themes identified in the data reflect perspectives of growth that occurred when students are allowed to be free to learn. Future work can revolve around developing learning experiences that enable students to take more responsibility for their learning and developing effective methods for evaluating the learning that has occurred
Session #1170 - Nursing Education: Curriculum
The 29th Annual MNRS Research Conference (April 1-4, 2005)